A French judge has handed preliminary charges to a 29-year-old woman whom authorities suspect is part of a female ``terrorist commando'' group in the service of the Islamic State group - one of five suspects in an aborted attack near Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and another possible attack thwarted by police.
The discovery of an abandoned car early last Sunday led investigators to the arrests of three more women and a man that revealed links to two attacks this year in France claimed by the Islamic State group and underscored the overlapping nature of the terrorist web.
France, which is in a state of emergency, has been on tenterhooks with three attacks this year, including a truck attack in Nice on Bastille Day.
An abandoned car found on Sunday with its licence plates removed, its hazard lights mysteriously flashing and loaded with gas canisters set a frantic search in motion.
A woman identified by authorities as Ornella G, was the first to be arrested, on Tuesday with a companion at a highway stop near the southern city of Orange.
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Her companion was freed, the prosecutor's office said on Saturday.
But Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said on Friday that Ornella G's fingerprints were found inside the car. She was known to intelligence agents as someone who was looking to go to Syria.
The judge charged Ornella G with association with terrorists to commit attacks and attempted murder in an organised group linked to a terrorist enterprise and ordered her jailed, the prosecutor's office said.
On the heels of Ornella G's arrest, police traced the person linked to the car to a house in the Essonne region south of Paris and descended on Thursday evening.
A confrontation with three women outside ensued, including the 19-year-old daughter of the car's owner.
Molins said this woman was shot in the leg as she lunged at a police officer with a knife after another woman, Sarah H, 23, attacked and wounded a plainclothes officer with a kitchen knife through the open window of his car.
The third woman, Amel S, 39, who lived at the house, also was arrested along with her daughter, about to turn 16 but potentially implicated in the ``terrorist project,'' according to the prosecutor. She was found in another Paris suburb.
Molins said the investigation has led to the dismantling of a ``terrorist commando of young women'' aligned with the Islamic State group.
Those detained can be held for four days of questioning before going before a judge who will charge or free them.
