Terror threat 'very high' as Charlie Hebdo trial begins

A man looks at the display of a bookseller along the River Seine in Paris. The Charlie Hebdo attack was one of several major terror attacks in Europe in the past decade. Photo / AP file

The terror threat in France remains "very high", with 8000 people on the watchlist, the country's interior minister said, on the eve of the trial of the alleged Charlie Hebdo attackers.

Gérald Darminin warned of the threat, notably from Sunni extremists, as the authorities said that at least half a dozen plots have been foiled this year so far.

He was speaking as France prepared to stage its first trial since the attacks on the offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in January 2015.

On January 7, 2015, brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi stormed the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine, killing 12 people, including cartoonists, other staff and a police officer in eastern Paris.

In the two ensuing days, another French Islamist, Amédy Coulibaly, killed policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe in a southern suburb and killed another four people in a Jewish supermarket just east of the capital.

France will reopen one of the worst chapters of its recent history this week when more than a dozen people go on trial accused of helping jihadist terrorists to massacre staff at Charlie Hebdo https://t.co/GGNISZ2qSA

— The Times (@thetimes) August 31, 2020

At first, authorities insisted there was no link between the assailants but it later transpired they had coordinated their attacks for Isis (Islamic State).

Although all three gunmen were shot dead in the aftermath, some 14 people will stand trial tomorrow night NZT in connection with killings in the first such case since the 2015 onslaught and subsequent terror attacks.

Over 49 days, more than 140 witnesses will be heard in a case seen by victims and families as a legal landmark over Kalashnikov killings that shocked France and the world.

It will be filmed for state archives.

Eleven of the accused were swiftly arrested but three vanished in Syria and will be tried in absentia.