Show caption A masked police officer pulls a suitcase after searches in Marseille. Security has been a major campaigning issue in the election. Photograph: Claude Paris/AP France French police seize bomb-making materials after election plot arrests Two ‘radicalised’ French nationals held and guns also retrieved in Marseille operation that minister says foiled imminent attack Jon Henley European affairs correspondent @jonhenley Tue 18 Apr 2017 10.26 EDT Share on Facebook

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Police in Marseille have seized guns and bomb-making materials after arresting two men suspected of planning an “imminent and violent attack” days before the first round of France’s presidential election.

The French interior minister, Matthias Fekl, said the two, who were detained at different addresses in the southern port city, were French nationals aged 24 and 30.

“These two radicalised men … intended to commit in the very short-term – by that I mean in the coming days – an attack on French soil,” Fekl told journalists. He said a definite attack had been foiled but gave no details of its target.

The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said an Islamic State (Isis) flag and jihadist propaganda had been found the home of one suspect. He said the second suspect had links to a Belgian cell. The two men met in 2015, while sharing a prison cell for petty crime, Molins said.

Le Figaro newspaper quoted a source in the campaign team of the right wing candidate François Fillon as saying the tip-off leading to the arrests had come from the UK, which had “intercepted data on two individuals known to the intelligence services”.

Photos of the men were given last week to the security teams of two of the election’s leading contenders, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, their campaigns said.

“The photos were passed to my security service from Thursday,” Le Pen, who is scheduled to hold the last big rally of her campaign in Marseille this week – told Agence France-Presse. A Macron aide also confirmed his team had seen the pictures.

A spokesman for Fillon, who is nipping at Le Pen and Macron’s heels in a contest that has become too close to call, said his campaign had been informed of a possible security risk on Friday. The paper also said police had recovered a video of the men swearing allegiance to Isis.

The suspects, Mahiedine Merabet and Clement Baur, were both detained under arrest warrants for terrorist criminal association, according to a police document obtained by the Associated Press. The French president, François Hollande, hailed the “remarkable” arrests.

Fekl said more than 50,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers would be deployed across the country for both days of the election, whose first round this Sunday will be followed by a runoff between the two top candidates on 7 May.

“Everything has been put in place to ensure the security of this big event for our democracy and our republic,” he said. “Security forces are mobilised everywhere across France to ensure the security of French people.”

Clement B and Mahiedine M, the two men arrested in Marseille. Photograph: Police handout/AFP/Getty

With France still in a state of emergency after Islamist terrorist attacks since January 2015 that have killed more than 230 people, national security has been a major theme of the presidential campaign.

Recent polls show Le Pen and Macron on 22% and 24% of the vote, leading Fillon and the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon by only by three or four points. With as many as one-third of voters still undecided, any two could go through to the runoff.



Le Pen told RTL radio on Tuesday she would expel foreign extremists and call up army reservists to close France’s borders if she won. “We cannot fight the terrorism that weighs on our country without controlling our borders,” she said.

Macron said the arrests were a reminder the terrorist threat remained very high, but added: “Terrorism ... is a challenge that calls on us more than anything else to come together, because the terrorists wish nothing more than our division.”

Doubling down on a promise on Monday to suspend all immigration, Le Pen also told RTL she would impose a moratorium for several weeks “to assess the situation. The reality is that immigration is massive in our country.”

She added that a Le Pen presidency would aim to limit annual immigration to 10,000, and would freeze long-term visas for two weeks to ensure recipients were not taking jobs from French citizens.

Fillon told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday the Front National leader’s plan was absurd. He said while immigration numbers should come down, the key was to preserve French values and identity.

“Immigration must be regulated because we have an economic, social and housing situation that doesn’t enable us to welcome as many people who want to come here,” Fillon said. “But a moratorium makes no sense.”

Polls have shown voters more concerned about unemployment and living standards than terrorism or security, though analysts warn this could change in the event of further attacks.