Eighteen airports in the regions were the target of new false bomb threats on Friday, ten of which were evacuated, the transport minister said, promising that the “big idiots” who spread these messages would be punished.
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“Since Wednesday we have seen an increase in warnings and false bomb threats at our airports. And I want to be clear: the smart guys or the little pranksters who get involved in this kind of game are in reality big idiots, even big criminals,” Clément Beaune said during a press conference.
A few hours before the start of the All Saints holiday, air traffic was suspended for the third day in a row on Friday. As of Wednesday, 17 airports had received threats, 15 of which had been evacuated; On Thursday, 25 people were alerted and evacuation measures were taken for 19 of them, said Mr. Beaune from the headquarters of the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) in Paris.
The minister added shortly after 3:15 p.m. that the warnings on Friday following receipt of the threatening emails were “currently largely over,” but he complained about an “unacceptable situation.” Each airport is required to file a complaint for each alert case received and the courts are called in, he recalled.
“Let everyone who thinks they are making a bad joke and causing fear know that this is an offense that will be punished very seriously and very severely, that they will be identified and each of them will be punished.” There are two threats up to three years in prison and fines amounting to tens of thousands of euros,” emphasized Mr. Beaune: “Of course we will not hesitate to apply them.”
He did not name the affected platforms on Friday, but an earlier report from an airport source reporting 14 affected facilities included Bordeaux, Béziers, Lille, Beauvais, Tarbes, Nantes, Brest, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Lyon-Bron, called Pau. Nice, Biarritz and Rennes.
Many airports, including Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille, Toulouse, Carcassonne and Brest, as well as Perpignan and Basel-Mulhouse, were later confirmed to be at risk.
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Less serious disorders
Since the start of this wave, the operations of the major airports serving Paris, namely Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly, have not been affected, but Mr. Beaune revealed on Friday that these platforms had received threats on Wednesday without it being deemed necessary was used to evacuate them.
In the presence of the Commander of the Air Transport Gendarmerie (GTA), General Philippe Mirabaud, and the Director General of Civil Aviation Damien Cazé, the minister defended a “case by case” response that would be “adapted and proportionate to each situation”, according to the prefects ” the reality of the threat and the security conditions”.
According to the flight operations dashboard on the DGAC website, disruptions on Friday were less severe than the previous day, when there were flight delays of up to three hours at some airports.
The Nice-Côte-d’Azur platform, which suffered the most delays on Friday, is a result of the bad weather in the Alpes-Maritimes, according to traffic monitoring agency Eurocontrol.
The latter called on airlines in a statement to be prepared to adjust their flight schedules at short notice due to “security problems in French airport terminals”.
On Thursday evening, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin mentioned 18 arrests within 48 hours in connection with these tenders, which also affected educational institutions and tourist resorts.
The Palace of Versailles was evacuated at midday on Friday for the fifth time this week following another warning, the facility said on its X (formerly Twitter) account, before reopening just before 4 p.m.
These alarms have been increasing in France for several days, especially since the jihadist attack that claimed the life of the teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras.