Corsican separatists planted a car stuffed with explosives in central Paris yesterday in what they said was a demonstration of their capacity to strike "where and whenever we choose".
Anti-terrorist police sealed off part of the district in the south-west of the capital after journalists at two newspapers received telephone tip-offs from the pro-independence group Armata Corsa.
Inside the Renault Clio were several rubbish bags containing unidentified chemicals, nails and screws, six small gas cylinders as well as an unattached but functioning detonating device, police said.
Armata Corsa is a small dissident separatist group which in January threatened to unleash "blind and bloody attacks" in Paris and Strasbourg unless the killers of one of its leaders, Jean-Michel Rossi, were brought to justice.
According to Le Monde, an anonymous caller said that the group had decided not to set off the Paris car-bomb, "which would have been murderous," because of "recent signs of good will" on the part of the ruling Socialist party.
Meanwhile, roads running alongside the Seine in Paris were closed yesterday after being flooded. Boat traffic has been suspended since Friday. Record rainfall this month has already affected large areas of France.