Teen girls charged in France over ‘concert hall attack plot’

Two teenage girls have been charged in France with allegedly plotting to assault a Paris concert hall some four months after the nation’s deadliest terror attacks, legal sources said on Saturday.

Two teenage girls have been charged in France with allegedly plotting to assault a Paris concert hall some four months after the nation’s deadliest terror attacks, legal sources said on Saturday.

This photo taken on November 16, 2015 shows candles and messages left at a makeshift memorial next to the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. Islamic State jihadists claimed a series of coordinated attacks by gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris that killed at least 129 people in scenes of carnage at a concert hall, restaurants and the national stadium. (AFP Photo)

The girls, 15 and 17 years old, exchanged messages on Facebook in which they claimed they wanted to launch an attack similar to those in November that targeted the Bataclan concert venue as well as bars, restaurants and a football stadium, police said.

The girls were arrested Wednesday and appeared before an anti-terror judge on Friday on charges of criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist undertaking.

Two other girls who joined in the conversations were questioned but released without charge.

Paris prosecutors said the discussions of the attack were in the preliminary stage and “neither weapons, nor explosive substances have been discovered.”

France has remained on high alert since the November 13, 2015 attacks which killed 130 people, including 90 at a rock concert at the Bataclan.