A radicalised convert to Islam has been arrested in France for allegedly planning to attack ‘English and American tourists’, it was claimed last night.

The 22-year-old suspect was arrested on Monday night carrying ‘a knife and small mallet’ intending to carry out ‘a violent act’, a judicial source claimed.

It was reported last night that he was planning to attack: ‘English and American tourists, then security forces’.

French police, file photograph, have arrested a radical convert to Islam who was planning a terror attack

The man was arrested in the historic town of Carcassonne, about an hour's drive from Toulouse

The suspect comes from the southern French town of Lunel - notorious for the number of residents who have left to wage jihad in Syria - but had been living in the nearby Tarn region.

He was arrested at the train station of Carcassonne, a fortified town an hour’s drive from Toulouse - where four matches of the Euro 2016 football tournament are taking place.

According to La Dépêche du Midi, the local newspaper, the unnamed suspect was on a security “S” watch list for potentially dangerous individuals, including would-be jihadists.

He “confessed to investigators that he wanted to attack English and American tourists, before launching an attack on security forces – police and military,” wrote Le Dépêche.

According to Le Parisien, the man also said he intended to target Russians.

France has been under a state of emergency since Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers struck Paris in November, killing 130.