A device resembling an explosive belt has been found in the town of Montrouge south of Paris and is currently being analysed by police.
The item was found in a pile of litter on a residential street near students’ accommodation on Monday afternoon, and police experts are working to establish its composition and whether it is made up of explosives. A source close to the investigation told Reuters: “It looks like a belt of explosives.”
The immediate area where the belt was found was closed off while police checked the material and established what it was. There was no police confirmation yet as to whether it was an explosives belt.
Security services in France and Belgium are trying to hunt down suspects and potential accomplices following a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on Paris on 13 November that killed 130 people in three hours.
During those attacks, different groups of suicide bombers and gunmen targeted the Stade de France stadium, north of Paris, and bars and restaurants in the capital, in addition to a bloody gun attack and hostage situation at the Bataclan concert hall that killed 89 people.
Salah Abdeslam, 26, a key suspect in the Paris attacks, is still at large after calling two friends from Belgium to come and pick him up in Paris hours after the attacks.
He is believed to have played a possible role in the series of restaurant shootings on 13 November, and his older brother, Brahim, blew himself up in one attack on a restaurant. Several Belgian police raids have failed to locate Abdeslam, who remains at large.
His phone is was reportedly detected later on November 13 by a mobile phone mast in Chatillon in the south of Paris, not far from Montrouge.
Police checks on the suspected explosive belt are ongoing.
