French anti-terror police arrest suspected neo-Nazi sympathizer suspected of targeting Olympic torch

PARIS – French anti-terror police have arrested a suspected neo-Nazi sympathizer suspected of planning an attack on the Olympic torch relay, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said Wednesday.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said the man was arrested on Wednesday morning at his home in Alsace, eastern France. He runs a group on the social media channel Telegram called “French Aryan Division” and was arrested for death threats, hate speech and other posts he allegedly wrote.

Prosecutors said his alleged comments, which sparked an investigation by their online hate unit, were not specifically directed against the Paris Olympic Games, which begin on July 26 with a high-security opening ceremony.

However, Darmanin said: “There was obviously a willingness to intervene during one stage of the torch relay.”

The Olympic torch is nearing the end of its months-long journey through France and the French overseas territories before the opening of the Games.

Darmanin, who is acting head of the Interior Ministry until a new government is formed after parliamentary elections earlier this month, said the suspect had previously been noticed by police “due to right-wing extremist ideas that can be described as neo-Nazi.”

“We know that from the outset he had the desire to hit political targets or people with a migrant background,” he said.

The public prosecutor’s office announced that in addition to alleged death threats and inflammatory posts, the suspect was also being investigated on suspicion of passing on personal information that put people at risk and of passing on instructions on how to build bombs.

Up to 45,000 police officers and gendarmes are involved in the security operation in the French capital for the first Olympic Games in a century, as well as a 10,000-strong military force that will patrol streets and towns in the Paris region and carry out other security missions.