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Five men arrested in France for planning an attack in the Paris area were directed from the Islamic State (ISIS) group's heartland, a prosecutor said on Friday, according to AFP.

Over last weekend police had arrested seven men and seized weapons in raids in the cities of Strasbourg and Marseille.

Two of the suspects were later released but the other five – four Frenchmen and a Moroccan – appeared before anti-terrorism judges on Friday, public prosecutor Francois Molins told a press conference.

"The breakup of this network... has protected us against a large-scale attack," said President Francois Hollande, according to AFP.

Molins said items seized in Strasbourg included written documents showing "clear allegiance" to ISIS and "glorifying death and martyrdom".

"The Strasbourg commando unit, but also the individual arrested in Marseille, were in possession of common instructions... sent by a coordinator from the Iraqi-Syrian region via encrypted applications," he said.

Investigators established that the Strasbourg cell was planning an attack on December 1 on one of a number of possible targets, although Molins admitted authorities have so far been "unable to determine the exact one".

A police source said on Thursday that the cell's members researched "a dozen sites" online including the Christmas market on the Champs-Elysees, the Disneyland Paris theme park, cafe terraces in the northeast of the capital, the Paris police headquarters and a metro station.

The suspects were "in possession of or in search of weapons and financing" and were "looking for targets," Molins said.

He said the coordinator had also been in contact with two other people who were arrested on June 14, during the Euro 2016 soccer tournament in France.

One of those suspects told interrogators that an attack was planned, and mentioned the headquarters of the Paris police and also that of the internal intelligence agency DGSI outside the capital.

Authorities in Portugal had been aware of the Moroccan, aged 46, who was arrested in Marseille, because of his possible radicalization while living in the country.

The four other suspects, aged between 35 and 37, were previously unknown to French intelligence services, although two of them are suspected of having travelled to Syria in 2015.

All five are to be prosecuted for terrorism offences, said Molins.

France is under a state of emergency that gives security forces enhanced powers of surveillance and arrest, a year after the Paris attacks.

Islamist extremists have carried out three large-scale attacks in France since January 2015, when gunmen targeted the Charlie Hebdosatirical magazine and the Jewish supermarket Hyper Cacher, where four Jews were murdered.

Ten months after those two attacks, Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists massacred 130 people in attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, France's national stadium and a handful of bars and restaurants in eastern Paris.

In July, a terrorist ploughed a truck into crowds watching fireworks in the southern city of Nice on Bastille Day, killing 86. ISIS claimed responsibility for that attack as well.

The government has said 17 attacks were foiled since the beginning of the year in France, and seven in 2015.

France's state of emergency gives security forces enhanced powers of surveillance and arrest.

Hollande said Friday the "fight against terrorism," will be "long and difficult but one thing is certain, we will win because France, when it stays together, is capable of overcoming all challenges."

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)