Two held over attack plot ahead of polls

French security services yesterday swooped on two men accused of plotting an attack just five days before the first round of the presidential election.

The men were arrested in the southern city of Marseille by agents from France's domestic intelligence agency.

Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said the attack was to be carried out in the "next few days" by the two men, aged 23 and 29, who are known to be "radicalised".

He gave no further details on the nature of the plot. More than 230 people have been killed in terror attacks in France since January 2015.

Candidates have been heavily guarded during the election campaign, but so far there have been few security scares.

"Everything will be done to ensure security" for the election, Fekl said. The race was narrowing ahead of Sunday's vote, with the pack closing behind frontrunners Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, while a quarter of voters remained undecided.

For weeks, centrist former banker Macron and National Front (FN) leader Le Pen have been out in front but opinion polls now show there is a very real chance that any of the four leading candidates could reach the second-round runoff on May 7.

Scandal-plagued conservative Francois Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks.

"We have never seen a four-way contest like this in the first round of a presidential election," Frederic Dabi of the Ifop polling institute told AFP.

"There has been a real tightening of the race with four candidates between 19 percent and 23 percent," he added.