A Norwegian musician and convicted murderer with links to mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has been arrested in France on "suspicion he was preparing a major terrorist act," security sources said.

The French interior ministry said Kristian "Varg" Vikernes — described by French officials as a neo-Nazi — constituted "a potential threat to society," BBC News reported Tuesday.

Vikernes, a black-metal musician and writer known as Varg, spent 16 years behind bars for stabbing a friend to death in Oslo in 1993.

He was recently arrested along with his wife Marie Cachet in central France after she purchased four rifles. Although Cachet, a French national, had a legal firearms permit, French security services were worried that Vikernes might carry out a violent act, a Paris prosecutor said.

Police sources said officers were searching the couple’s home for weapons and explosives.

Vikernes had in the past received a copy of a manifesto from Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway on July 22, 2011.

Breivik planted a bomb in central Oslo and went on a shooting spree that day on a nearby island.

Last year, he began serving a 21-year prison term — the maximum allowed under Norwegian law — for those crimes.

On his website, Vikernes discusses Breivik's manifesto while criticizing him for killing innocent Norwegians.

Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto outlined his planned crusade against Muslims, who he said "were taking over Europe and could only be defeated through a violent civil war."

In 1993, Vikernes stabbed to death a friend, fellow Norwegian guitarist Oeystein "Euronymous" Aarseth whom he played with in the black metal band Mayhem.

Since his release from prison in 2009, Vikernes has been releasing music and promoting what he calls "Odalism," an ideology based on the idea that white Europeans should re-adopt "native European values."