Almost 70 false bomb threats have targeted French airports since Wednesday. And this erroneous information was sent from “almost always the same email address located in Switzerland,” Transport Minister Clément Beaune said on Sunday.
They are not the work of “little pranksters”, but of “big idiots or even big criminals”, the minister stressed.
As for their motivation, “there can be a mix between people who make bad jokes, people who really want to scare people, and sometimes also a kind of competition of stupidity between hackers,” he suggested.
A Swiss email address
He invited hosting sites to help the French authorities. “Everyone has a responsibility, including platforms and social networks, not to support these types of attacks and to cooperate as quickly as possible with French civil aviation and our justice system,” she recalled.
Making false alarms is “extremely dangerous” because it mobilizes security forces “for several hours” and forces an evacuation “in some cases so” people gather outside, which is also a security problem, “he recalled. The minister indicated that he had asked each airport, for each alert received by email or call, to systematically file a complaint.
60 investigations started
France has raised the alert level of the Vigipirate plan against attacks to the maximum since the murder, on October 13, of Professor Dominique Bernard at his institute in Arras (Pas de Calais) by a young man accused of Islamist radicalization.
The police and military patrols of Operation Sentinel have been reinforced, as well as the number of agents at train stations and airports. Starting next week, “40% more patrols will be implemented” at Paris airports, Beaune announced.
Beyond that, the minister wants “more powers” to be given to the SNCF security forces, in addition to the reinforced capabilities already introduced for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Source: BFM TV
