A plan to attack a church would have been thwarted in Hérault, France.

The suspect, an 18-year-old woman from Béziers, was presented to justice on Thursday for her indictment and imprisonment.

She had been in police custody since her arrest overnight from Saturday to Sunday.

Five months after the jihadist attack on the basilica of Nice, the anti-terrorism claims to have foiled an action plan against a church in the Hérault: the suspect, a young woman of 18 years from Béziers, is presented to justice on Thursday with a view to his indictment and his imprisonment.

LB had been in police custody since his arrest on the night of Saturday to Sunday, in the middle of the Easter weekend, after a search of the family home, in a popular district of Béziers.

Morocco claims paternity of the pipe

The young woman, "out of school for two years" and "never sentenced", was however unknown to the services, until a very recent information "indicating a threat of attack against a church", according to a statement Thursday from the prosecution national anti-terrorism (Pnat).

The Moroccan services claimed on Tuesday the paternity of the pipe, indicating in a statement having transmitted on April 1 to their French counterparts "precise information on a French citizen of Moroccan origin who was planning an imminent terrorist operation targeting a church in France", " in coordination with elements of Daesh ", the Islamic State group.

Without confirming this information, a source close to the investigation underlined the "particularly dense and very confident cooperation" with Morocco, "particularly reactive as soon as information is likely to concern the security of French territory".

An investigation was opened on April 3, allowing the search the same evening to the home of the young woman.

A photo of Samuel Paty's beheading found at the suspect's home

At home, the investigators then found products allowing to manufacture explosives (acetone, sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide), two potential "improvised explosive devices in the course of assembly", as well as "handwritten notes evoking various projects of action violent "and jihadist documentation," referring "in particular to the Islamic State group, according to the Pnat.

Investigators also got their hands on "a printed photograph of the beheading of Samuel Paty," the Yvelines college professor assassinated on October 16 for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, "as well as photographs depicting armed jihadists. ".

"She wanted to attack churches, including one near her home, and spoke of other targets, including a college," said a source familiar with the matter, while the initial information referred to churches in Montpellier.

According to Pnat, a drawing of a church in her neighborhood was seized from her home.

The young woman, from a "very precarious, desocialized environment" is "very depressed, suicidal, but at the same time in a desire for hatred, revenge against the Republic and its institutions", adds the source close to the file.

"She talks a lot about the State of Israel and the churches."

Her mother and her three sisters, arrested with her, were released between Monday and Wednesday.

"No element has come to implicate" this family circle and "no element of radicalization has also been noted concerning them", details the Pnat press release.

The prosecution intends to request his placement in pre-trial detention

The young woman, she was brought in the night from Wednesday to Thursday at the Paris court.

It must be presented to an anti-terrorist examining magistrate, responsible for continuing the investigations opened for "criminal terrorist association" and "possession of incendiary or explosive products" in connection with a terrorist enterprise.

The prosecution intends to request that he be placed in pre-trial detention.

"Places of worship are recurring targets of jihadist propaganda", underlines the source close to the file, recalling the attack perpetrated by Brahim Aouissaoui which left 3 dead on October 29 in Nice, or the assassination of Father Hamel in July 2016 in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen.

"We can think that the young woman was influenced by the many videos she had in her possession," adds this source.

Since the republication of the cartoons of Muhammad in September, on the occasion of the trial of the attacks of January 2015, three attacks have been perpetrated in France: in addition to the assassination of Samuel Paty and the attack on the Basilica of Nice, a young Pakistani seriously injured two people with a butcher's leaf in front of the former Charlie Hebdo premises in Paris on September 25.

The wave of Islamist attacks that hit France since those of January 2015 has left more than 250 dead.