One of the two parcel bombs intercepted last week after being sent from Yemen was defused 17 minutes before it was due to go off, France's Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux has said.
Mr Hortefeux was speaking to France-2 television but did not reveal his source for the information.
The two bombs were sent via air freight to the US but intercepted in Dubai and the UK and defused.
Investigators have focused on a Yemen-based al-Qaeda offshoot.
The group, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has said it was behind the parcel bomb plot.
Security forces in Yemen are hunting for suspected bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri, who is suspected of being behind last year's failed 25 December attempt to bomb a US airliner and other attacks.
The bombs were found after a tip-off from Saudi authorities and were pulled off US-bound cargo planes in England and Dubai.
The bombs were made of a difficult-to-detect explosive called PETN, and concealed within printer cartridges inside larger packages.
BBC News
