What we know about the anti-terrorist operation carried out in Meurthe-et-Moselle

Five people, suspected of being “linked to the Islamist movement”, were arrested on Friday in several towns in the department. Four of them were released on Saturday.

Five people were arrested in Meurthe-et-Moselle on Friday December 22, at the request of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat). Suspected of having carried out reconnaissance on a Christmas market in the Grand Est, they had been followed since mid-December by the intelligence services. Four police custody was lifted on Saturday, without prosecution, said a judicial source at France Télévisions. The fifth, however, was extended. Franceinfo summarizes what we know about this operation.

Five young men arrested

An anti-terrorist operation carried out in the early morning. Authorities arrested five young men on Friday. Three were arrested in Nancy and two in university residences, in Toul and Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, according to what France Télévisions learned. They were then transferred to the anti-terrorist sub-directorate (Sdat), in Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) to be questioned.

Aged 20 to 23, none of them are on S file, according to information from France Télévisions. The suspicions of “link with the Islamist movement”, initially mentioned, have not been confirmed. A search was carried out in December at the home of the family of the young man arrested in Toul, France Télévisions also learned. The suspect’s phone and tablet were seized and then returned. Incomprehension over this arrest, the family describes the young man as a hardworking medical student, reservist in the French army. His parents say he wanted to show his friends the Strasbourg Christmas market.

The custody of four of them was lifted on Saturday evening, without prosecution at this stage, while that of the fifth was extended, France Télévisions learned on Sunday from a judicial source.

A precautionary operation

According to several sources close to the case interviewed by France Télévisions, the suspects are suspected of having carried out scouting at a Christmas market in the Grand-Est. One of these sources mentions to franceinfo a “probable project in Strasbourg, but not really completed”. They had been under surveillance since mid-December by the intelligence services, and their car was identified and marked, a police source told France Télévisions.

The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into criminal terrorist association, aimed at “check if there was a terrorist project, what its progress was and the target(s) if applicable”, according to a source close to the investigation at France Télévisions. The anti-terrorist sub-directorate of the judicial police and the general directorate of internal security (DGSI) were seized of the investigation. Reinforcements were deployed on Saturday at the various Christmas markets in Nancy, according to France Bleu. “We asked for these reinforcements so that this weekend goes very well”justified Mathieu Klein, mayor of the city.

A tense context

The “emergency attack” level of the Vigipirate system has been active in France since October, after the attack in Arras, in which a history and geography professor was killed. As the Paris Olympic Games approach, “there is a lot of eavesdropping, a lot of electronic and computer surveillance. We know that there are sleeper cells, we try to deal with all that”commented for his part Jean-Christophe Couvy, national secretary of the SGP-FO police union, to France Televisions.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called on Friday the prefects to “maintain extreme vigilance” during the holidays, due to “very high level of terrorist threat which continues to weigh”. An attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market left five people dead and around ten injured in 2018. The trial is due to begin next February.