A “Frenchman” has been arrested for planning to take a kindergarten hostage and kill a policeman. Thanks to the sophisticated surveillance system used by French intelligence, the would-be terrorist — an admirer of Mohamed Merah, the Butcher of Toulouse — was arrested before he could carry out his plans.
Many thanks to MissPiggy for translating this news report, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:00 | According to information BFM TV has received, a man was arrested for planning an attack on | |
| 00:03 | a kindergarten and also against a policeman. Cecile Oliver from the police justice service is with us. | |
| 00:08 | Cecile you are the one who brought us this information. What happened, exactly? | |
| 00:11 | A 31-year-old man was arrested on March 25th at his home in Seine-et-Marne by the DGC. | |
| 00:18 | This man was recognised by interior intelligence for being radicalised since the end of 2010. | |
| 00:25 | It was learned by the DGC that this man was planning an attack on a kindergarten, | |
| 00:32 | and he was in the process of procuring weapons. He was stopped, and taken into custody. | |
| 00:38 | While in custody he confessed his plans. He wanted to or was thinking of going into a kindergarten, | |
| 00:46 | taking the children hostage, and planned on killing the police who came to liberate the school. | |
| 00:56 | In addition to that, he confessed to planning to kill a police officer from his county who had arrested him | |
| 01:03 | in the past for a rebellion (?). He had already found out his home address. | |
| 01:13 | Another thing which is particularly worrying about this suspect is that he a huge admirer of Mohamed Merah. | |
| 01:19 | He even claimed to be his spiritual son, from whom he got the idea to target the school. | |
| 01:25 | So Cecile, to what degree of progress was he able to advance his plans? | |
| 01:29 | It is still difficult to evaluate, but the investigators are pretty sure he’s been trying to obtain weapons | |
| 01:37 | since August of 2018. That’s when one of his childhood friends in France was stopped by customs | |
| 01:42 | because he was trying to import weapons. This man has also been indicated in this case for being | |
| 01:49 | associated with terrorist criminals. The suspect also told the police that he had chosen the school. | |
| 01:55 | The hasn’t been confirmed. The digital data has been seized, but there doesn’t appear to be any evidence | |
| 02:02 | of research, looking for schools or jihadist propaganda. However, the experts have proven that he deleted | |
| 02:09 | digital evidence by going on the Dark Web. Another thing our source is emphasising is that | |
| 02:16 | this man has psychological problems. During his interrogation he admitted to having psychological | |
| 02:23 | problems. He even tried to justify his act by explaining that he was depressed and that he wanted | |
| 02:27 | to exalt his suicide through a strong media impact. |
He has psychological problems. What a surprise!