A French court on Thursday sentenced three men to between two and six years in prison for plotting to carry out a car bomb attack on a public building near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Rany Arnaud, Nadir Badache and Adrien Guihal were arrested in December 2008 after they allegedly planned to set off a car bomb outside the offices of a national police investigation body in the centre of Paris.

Arnaud, a convert to Islam and the ringleader of the group, was targeted by police after posting calls on an Islamic fundamentalist website for France to be attacked because of its participation in the war in Afghanistan.

He aimed to obtain large quantities of fertiliser to make a bomb, the court heard.

Arnaud was sentenced to six years in prison on a charge of belonging to a terrorist organisation. On the same charge, Badache was sentenced to two years in prison, with six months suspended, and Guihal was sentenced to four years, with one year suspended.