France's Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux says that 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.
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
BBC News - Yemen parcel bomb 'was 17 minutes from exploding'