Second couple held over Paris car containing gas cylinders

A second couple was detained overnight in connection with an investigation into the discovery of a car in Paris containing six gas canisters, a French police source said Thursday.

The pair was picked up near Montargis, about 110 kilometers (65 miles) south of Paris.

Their detention raises to four the number of people held in connection with the suspect car, an abandoned Peugeot 607 which was parked several hundred meters from Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

The first couple, who were detained at a service station on a road in southern France, were known to the security services for having links to radical Islamists.

The daughter of the car’s owner, described by her father as being radicalized, is also wanted for questioning, police said.

Anti-terror investigators are probing the incident which comes as France is on high alert following a string of jihadist attacks, including last November’s coordinated Islamic State (IS) group assaults in Paris by gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people.

A bar employee working near the cathedral raised the alert on Sunday after noticing a gas cylinder on the backseat of the car, which had no number plates, a police source said.

That cylinder was found to be empty, but five full cylinders were found in the boot of the car.

No detonators were found, police say.

Photographs of the metallic silver-colored car after it was discovered showed its boot open and the gas canisters placed on the ground in a quiet side street opposite the cathedral.

A notebook containing writing in Arabic was also found in the car, according to the mayor of the district of Paris where the vehicle was found.