A 24-year-old man had been arrested on Friday for carrying a prohibited weapon near the Condorcet high school.
A psychiatric report on the 24-year-old man, who was arrested on Friday in the Yvelines department for having an S file entry, concluded that there was no mental disorder and that he was therefore eligible for a criminal sanction, BFMTV and the AFP news agency learned from a source close to the investigation.
Strictly religious books were found during a search of his house. According to our information, photos of beheadings were found in his mobile phone.
On Friday, police sources had told the AFP news agency that the man was known for “radicalisation”. One of these persons stated on Saturday that the man was recorded in a fiche (card index) S.
The Versailles public prosecutor’s office said that he remained in police custody early on Saturday afternoon.
The man had been taken into custody in Limay (Yvelines) at around 3pm on Friday while leaving a mosque and near the Condorcet high school for carrying a prohibited weapon, according to police and judicial sources.
The Versailles public prosecutor’s office had confirmed the man’s arrest and said that “a police custody (was) underway, managed by the Mantes-la-Jolie police station for carrying a category D weapon” as part of an investigation launched in this context.
On Friday, a young Russian man with a record for radicalisation had killed a teacher with a knife and seriously injured two people at a collège-lycée in Arras in northern France.
During a visit to this school, President Emmanuel Macron spoke of another foiled “attempted attack” “in another region”. According to the Interior Ministry, he was referring to the arrest in Limay.
However, the Versailles prosecutor’s office had told the AFP news agency on Friday that “no assignment to the National Anti-terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) is being considered at this stage”.
The weapon possessed by the arrested man was “a priori a kitchen knife”, the prosecution added. He had been checked as part of an identity check and was carrying “a knife with a nine-centimetre blade, which he did not brandish or display” and “did not threaten”, the prosecution noted.
“He explained that he was homeless and always had the knife with him to defend himself in case of an attack.
The man had previously been convicted of “driving under the influence of drugs” and “carrying a category D weapon”.