A Russian national was detained in Paris last weekend. He is suspected of preparing certain actions to destabilize the political situation during the Olympic Games.
According to Le Parisien, a man in his 40s was detained after officers from the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) searched his home. The Russian was charged on Tuesday with working for a foreign state to fuel internal tensions in France and was ordered to be arrested as a preventive measure. He is in pretrial detention as part of a sensitive judicial investigation launched by the Paris prosecutor's office.
Le Parisien tellsthat French intelligence services had been watching the man for a long time before they came to search his apartment. The suspect's apartment is located near the site of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. A source close to the investigation told reporters that agents saw signs that the man was preparing “an operation in the interests of Russia with the aim of destabilizing the situation in France.”
Another source said that this was a “large-scale plan” and that the consequences of the suspect's actions could have been serious. However, there is no indication yet that this was a terrorist attack. Investigators will be looking into the suspect's specific plans and their scale.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had previously said he feared Russia was trying to use the Olympics for espionage or to discredit France. As part of the international competition, civil services conducted more than a million background checks on volunteers, employees and others involved in the organisation. This “check” of these profiles for past backgrounds allowed them to exclude 5,000 people, including 1,000 suspects of foreign interference. “We can talk about espionage,” Darmanin said.
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