Self-described nationalist told investigators he wanted to kill the French president at annual parade, judicial source says

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A 23-year-old man has been charged with plotting to assassinate Emmanuel Macron at France’s Bastille Day parade, a judicial source said.

The self-described nationalist, who was arrested last Wednesday, told investigators he wanted to kill the French president at the 14 July national parade in Paris, a source close to the investigation said.

He said he also wanted to attack “Muslims, Jews, blacks, homosexuals”, the source added.

Police arrested the man at his home in the north-west Paris suburb of Argenteuil on Wednesday after being alerted by users of a chatroom linked to a video game where he allegedly said he wanted to buy a firearm.

Three kitchen knives were found in his vehicle and analysis of his computer found that he had conducted internet searches on potential targets, the source said.

He was charged on Saturday with plotting to commit a terrorist act, the judicial source said.

The man was convicted for condoning terrorism in 2016 and sentenced to three years in prison, of which 18 months were suspended.

He had applauded the neo-Nazi mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage in 2011 in Norway.

The 14 July parade commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 – the start of the French Revolution and a turning point in world history.

The parade takes place on the Champs-Élysees, which has been the site of two recent attacks targeting police. Last month a man drove a car laden with weapons and gas canisters into a police van on the avenue. In April, a known extremist shot dead a police officer on the Champs-Élysees days before the first round of the presidential election.

Last 14 July a jihadist killed 86 people in a truck attack in Nice.

On Bastille Day in 2002, the then president, Jacques Chirac, was the target of an assassination attempt on the avenue.

France has been in a state of emergency that has been repeatedly renewed since jihadist attacks in Paris in November 2015, in which 130 people were killed.