French anti-terror police arrested six suspected radical Islamists today, the French prosecutor's office said.
The police made the arrests of the six, including a prison officer and a Muslim prison chaplain, in the port of St Malo in Brittany and in areas of western and central France as part of an inquiry begun last May.
Police became suspicious about the prison officer in the western city of Bourges because of large sums of money sent to his bank account and his attendance of a mosque which is considered fundamentalist, the prosecutor's office said.
Those arrested were not believed to have been planning an attack but have visited "sensitive" countries and are suspected of association with a "terrorist enterprise", it said. The prosecutor's office did not identify the suspects or give their countries of origin.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said earlier this month he was keeping France on red alert, the second highest level, because "the terrorist threat has never been so high".
Parliament is considering an anti-terror law that includes plans for more closed-circuit television cameras on streets as part of efforts to prevent any attacks similar to those in London last July and Madrid in March last year.