A French national suspected of planning a terrorist attack in France after returning from the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa was arrested last month, officials said Friday.
 
The man admitted to police that he had been instructed to carry out an attack on French soil - "preferably" during a concert - but has denied that he had any intention of following through with the plan, according to a judicial source.
 
The suspect did not have a police record and was unknown to French intelligence services before his trip to Syria, the judicial source said. A handgun was reportedly found at his home during the arrest.
 
During questioning, the suspect told police he had spent one week in Raqqa - which became the Islamic State (IS) group's de facto capital in northern Syria in mid-2013 - where he was injured during combat training.  Before returning to France, he received precise instructions about which route to take back to Paris and about carrying out an attack, the suspect allegedly told police after his arrest.
 
French police were tipped off to the former jihadist's presence in France after the arrest of another suspect, on June 15 in Poland. The second man, a Moroccan national, was detained on a Spanish arrest warrant.
 
Cherif and Said Kouachi, the two men who gunned down 12 people at the satirical weekly, received combat training in Yemen under the auspices of al Qaeda.
 
The French government revealed this week that 1,880 French citizens or residents were directly involved in jihadist networks. It said 133 people had died while fighting, with 491 others still waging war abroad.
 
News source: France 24