French police arrest 7 men, foil planned attack: Interior minister

French police arrested several men over the weekend and foiled a planned militant attack, the country's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Monday, November 21.

According to a Reuters report, seven people of French, Moroccan and Afghan origin and aged from 29 to 37 years, were arrested in all, two in Marseille and most of the others in the eastern city of Strasbourg.

"The result of the work of by the DGSI enabled us to halt a terrorist action, planned for a long time on our soil. It is therefore another foiled attack," Cazeneuve said.

He gave no information on the target of the planned attack. But a source close to the inquiry told Reuters that Strasbourg had not been targeted.

He did not reveal the intended target of the plot, but did say "the foiled attack was a co-ordinated attack aiming to target several sites simultaneously".

The weekend raids followed an eight-month investigation by security services.

"Credible information made these arrests necessary," a security source told the AFP news agency.

The mayor of Strasbourg said it appeared that the plot had focused on "the Paris region".

(WION with inputs from agencies)