The teenager was arrested at his home, franceinfo learned Friday from a source close to the case. More than a thousand students were evacuated on Wednesday and Thursday following these false alarms.
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A 16-year-old boy was arrested Thursday, October 19 at his home and placed in police custody, suspected of being the author of two false bomb threats in his high school located in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône (Val-d ‘Oise), Franceinfo learned on Friday from a source close to the matter. The first false alarm dates back to Wednesday. The Jean-Perrin high school received an email written in French and Arabic indicating that bombs had been planted in the establishment.
The threats were taken seriously since a large police force was put in place to evacuate the 1,100 students from the high school. A high school student also felt unwell. The information was confirmed to franceinfo by the high school principal, Patrick Séverac, who wants to be reassuring: “In the end nothing serious but we must realize that this kind of false alarms and emergency evacuations create a particular stir”. The principal recalls in particular that his establishment is located “very close to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine” and “some high school students here had Samuel Paty as a teacher when they were middle school students a few years ago.”
Finally, after verifications, the authorities were able to confirm that it was a false alarm. An investigation has been opened. The next day, Thursday, around 11 a.m., the school received a second email, sent from another address. Again, the message was written in French and Arabic. The high school therefore had to be evacuated again, this time again mobilizing numerous police officers. The establishment had to close its doors for the rest of the day and the principal filed two complaints for the two facts mentioned.
Twelve hours of lessons lost and 800 meals “thrown in the trash”
Principal Patrick Séverac deplores the number of teaching hours lost. He estimates “12 hours of lessons in total” over the two days. “The work of the deminers and the police is very long, because it is a comprehensive high school [avec] a huge area”. Another consequence that the principal deplores is food waste: “800 meals were thrown in the trash every day”, a “loss of almost 5,000 euros”.
On a legal level, the investigators managed to establish that the two email addresses had been created just before the events. Still according to the first elements of the investigation, the author of the messages used a VPN to anonymize himself. Analysis of IP connections finally made it possible to determine the suspect’s address, located in Yvelines. The teenager accused and arrested is a student in first grade at the Jean Perrin high school. He is known for acts of violence and aggravated theft.
For its part, the prosecution specifies that the adolescent must be presented to the children’s judge for “disclosure of information with a view to creating the belief that dangerous destruction or damage is going to be committed” And “intentional violence in a school establishment”. Concerning the second qualification, the prosecution explains that it is justified “by the context of psychological harm caused to the educational community following two evacuations from the establishment”.