France Arrests 7 Suspected of Plotting Major Terrorist Attack

Via The New York Times:

Seven men who French authorities say were planning a terrorist attack have been arrested in France, the government announced on Monday, sounding an alert about the continuing threat from terrorism barely a year after the attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris.

The arrests followed an eight-month-long investigation led by France’s domestic intelligence service, according to Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who said investigators were looking into the possibility that the plot involved a “coordinated attack aimed to hit several sites simultaneously” in the country.

The seven men were detained in the eastern city of Strasbourg and the Mediterranean port city of Marseille in an operation that began Sunday night, Mr. Cazeneuve said at a news conference, adding that the operation had “thwarted a terrorist attack that had been envisaged on our soil for a long time.”

Mr. Cazeneuve said that the seven men arrested, who ranged in age from 29 to 37, were a mix of French, Moroccan and Afghan citizens, but he did not provide a detailed breakdown. Six of them were unknown to French intelligence before the investigation began, he said, and the seventh, a Moroccan citizen, had been flagged to the French authorities by what he called a “partner country.”

There are two others in custody who are suspected of having connections to this network who were arrested last summer in a sting that was kept under wraps at the time.

Much of Europe is now reaping what decades of bad immigration policy have sown, most notably France and Germany. Concerns regarding what has come of that are currently being reflected in French politics, where Marine Le Pen is hoping to pull off the next surprise of the Brexit/Trump variety. As with Brexit and Trump, the polls are telling a different story:

French pollsters don’t think Marine Le Pen can win https://t.co/Zee4SBNvaG pic.twitter.com/tvUzUdzf2F

— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) November 19, 2016

This response to that was my favorite tweet of the weekend:

I feel like we’re in the “Michael Bay won’t make another Transformers” portion of this now. https://t.co/KtKCdXOGGA

— Safe Space Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) November 19, 2016