French police foil several terror plots following Bastille Day attacks

According to Jean-Michel Prêtre, the the city of Nice’s prosecutor, several serious terror attacks have been hindered, since the Bastille Day lorry attack which left 84 people dead, thanks to counter-terrorism forces in the region. During an interview for a French documentary titled ‘Deradicalisation’, Prêtre disclosed that as many as five serious plots targeting sporting events, schools or places of worship across the city had been foiled in the past three months. The prosecutor said: “Several cases were handed over to the specialist counter-terrorist judges in Paris. They involved plots to attack places of worship or certain gatherings, sporting events, stadiums, schools, which are recurrent themes on the communication published on the internet.” Prêtre added that the case involved individuals who were ready to act and had ‘began to articulate quite specific things about a specific target’. It was also reported earlier in the week the Prêtre told a court in Nice that around ’70 cases related to terrorism or violent radicalisation’ had been investigated by police since the attack in July. Last week French police confirmed they had made eight more arrests in connection with the Bastille Day attack.