Far-right militants go on trial for Macron attack plot

A dozen people with links to a French far-right group went on trial, accused of plotting to assassinate President Emmanuel Macron and commit a string of other attacks.

Prosecutors say the 13 members of the Barjols group conspired to engineer a putsch, which involved a plan for an attack on Macron during a public appearance in 2018.

The defendants are 11 men and two women, aged between 26 and 66.

Citing evidence collected online, from telephone conversations and meetings, prosecutors say the suspects also planned to kill migrants and attack mosques.

None of the plots allegedly prepared by the suspects ever came to anything.

As a result, prosecutors downgraded some of the initial charges over the course of their four-year investigation.

The main remaining accusation is a charge of conspiring to commit a terrorist act, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

A lawyer for the defence, Lucile Collot, said the prosecution's case was based "on the fiction that a violent act was going to happen".

She said the accusation of a planned terrorist act was "misplaced".

In 2018, France's domestic intelligence services received a tip-off saying that a far-right militant based in the French Alps was planning to attack Macron during a World War I commemoration in November of that year.

French anti-terror prosecutors began investigating on October 31, against a backdrop of boiling social anger in France over rising fuel prices, which was later to result in the creation of the Yellow Vest protest movement.