PARIS: A 16-year-old was arrested over a bomb hoax near Paris, police sources said on Friday, as authorities scrambled to halt a week of bomb scares at airports, schools and landmarks.
The spate of fake threats has hit a country on high alert since the Hamas attack on Israel and the fatal stabbing of a teacher in the northern French city of Arras last week.
The teenager was arrested on Thursday in Saint-Ouen-l´Aumône, a town northwest of Paris, over a bomb threat emailed to his school that caused the evacuation of around a thousand pupils.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the French authorities had made 18 arrests over false bomb threats on Wednesday and Thursday. Most of France´s major airports outside Paris were targeted, leading to evacuations, hours-long delays and dozens of cancelled flights.