French police arrested Monday three people suspected of placing five empty coffins wrapped in French flags with the words "French soldiers from Ukraine" written on them which were found near the Eiffel Tower on Saturday. The public prosecutors seeks charges against citizens of Bulgaria, Germany, and Ukraine and who are all under 30 years old, for premeditated violence.
French police were investigating whether the placing of the five full-sized coffins was another act of Russian interference. Prosecutors said leaving coffins at the foot of the Eiffel Tower was an act of psychological violence.
France could soon send its military to train forces in Ukraine despite the concerns of some allies and criticism by Russia, diplomatic sources told the Reuters news agency last week.
French daily Le Monde, quoting from security documents, reported that the three men had been in contact with a man suspected of having sprayed red hands on the Paris Shoah Memorial, a Holocaust museum, in mid-May.
2 View gallery
Red handprints sprayed on the Wall of the Righteous Among the Nations in Paris
(Photo: Screenshot)
In November, French prosecutors opened an investigation into whether two Moldovans who admitted to daubing Stars of David on the walls of Parisian properties did so at the behest of someone abroad.