De Maiziere said that navigation systems that were found show “an address in Paris”.

Responding to questions about the Paris attacks, Bavarian governor Horst Seehofer said: “In the course of spot checks we had an arrest where there are reasonable grounds to assume that there may be a link to the matter”.

“I would like to make this urgent plea to avoid drawing such swift links to the situation surrounding refugees”, Thomas de Maiziere said, noting that there have already been “appalling scales of attacks against asylum seekers and asylum seeker shelters”.

A spokesman for the Bavarian police stated they arrested the fifty one-yr-previous on November 5 on a motorway close to the city of Rosenheim after investigators discovered eight machine weapons, a number of handguns and explosives in his VW Golf.

The arrest of a 51-year-old man in Bavaria last week could be connected to the explosions and shootings in the French capital.

Söder added that Germany should consider following France’s lead by closing the country’s borders if the European Union was unable to secure its external frontiers – something the state of Bavaria might also do itself if federal action is not forthcoming, he said.

France was in a nationwide state of emergency after a night of horror in Paris when gunmen sprayed restaurants with bullets, massacred scores of concert-goers and launched suicide attacks near the national stadium. Asked about his destination, the man said he wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, police said.

De Maiziere also said more extremists could be on the run in Germany, though he gave no specific reason for thinking this.

The man was 51-years-old, and German authorities have informed French officials about the arrest, according to a report by the Associated Press.