France weighs cancelling Dakar rally after 'potential terror' blast

The French government is considering cancelling the Dakar rally as prosecutors investigate an explosion in Saudi Arabia that targeted a car and badly injured its French driver, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday.

"We thought that maybe it's best to abandon this sporting event... the question remains open," Le Drian told BFM television, adding that "there was potentially a terror attack against the Dakar."

French prosecutors said Tuesday that they had opened a terror probe over a December 30 blast in Jeddah, which left 61-year-old driver Philippe Boutron needing surgery for serious leg injuries before he returned to France.

Boutron's son said Thursday that his father had emerged from a coma, though both legs remain "badly injured."

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Saudi authorities and race organisers had indicated there was no criminal suspicion over the explosion, but France has warned its citizens in Saudi Arabia to excercise "maximum alertness -- security risk" in the wake of the blast.

"The possibility of a criminal act has not been ruled out," the ministry said in updated guidance on its website.

The famous race, formerly known as the Paris-Dakar, but now just as The Dakar, used to be staged from the French capital following a route to the Senegalese capital Dakar.

But security threats along its route in North Africa meant that from 2009 it was held in South America and from 2020 in Saudi Arabia. 

The final stage of this year's edition -- known as the Dakar 2022 -- is scheduled to take place on January 14.