Since the attack which cost the life of a teacher last Friday in a high school in Arras, there have been numerous false threats of attack. Managing to find their perpetrators is a very complicated task for investigators.
The Palace of Versailles and 11 regional airports were evacuated on Wednesday October 18. False bomb threats and false threats of attacks have been increasing in recent days. The phenomenon is not new but it is increasing in the context of the Arras attack which took place on Friday October 13.
>> Attack in Arras: “We say to ourselves that at any moment, it could start again”, worry the students of the Gambetta middle school in Arras, three days after the assassination of their teacher
These alerts immediately cause big scares, like the one that took place in a Parisian high school on the afternoon of Wednesday October 18. The general alert was given after the rumor of the attack on a student with a machete. Large police forces were immediately mobilized, intervention teams from the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) rushed to the scene but it was in fact a hoax.
This is yet another hoax since there have already been three evacuations at the Palace of Versailles since Saturday October 14. The Louvre Museum was also affected. 168 schools have also been evacuated since the start of the school year, indicates the Minister of National Education. The media are not left out because the France 3 teams in Reims had to hastily leave their building on Tuesday October 17 because of a threatening email. In the morning, Wednesday October 18, 11 regional airports also asked passengers to leave the premises. In Beauvais, they waited in the parking lots before being able to return to the terminals by taking shuttles.
“There is a media effect”notes David Le Bars, secretary general of the Union of National Police Commissioners (SNCP). “We are at a time when our compatriots are worried because there is an increase in threats. There are attacks that have been committed.” In these moments, there are “both people with bad intentions who really want to do harm and who make real threats, and those who find it amusing”.
Minesweepers and Raid dogs mobilized
Each time, the return to normal takes several hours and this necessarily mobilizes numerous police forces. When the Louvre Museum was evacuated on Saturday October 14, the central laboratory of the Paris police was put on alert. The deminers had to inspect 60,000 m², the size of around six football fields. It took all afternoon and during that time the museum remained closed to the public.
This is also the case for the middle and high school of a school complex in Palaiseau in Essonne which remained closed all afternoon Monday October 16, the time for the police to search the premises. At the Palace of Versailles, around 10,000 visitors are evacuated at each alert. Minesweepers and up to five dogs from the Raid or the gendarmerie specializing in the search for explosives are mobilized. David Le Bars specifies that “all” threats are taken seriously, “except when you obviously have a weirdo whose comments are totally incoherent and we realize that ultimately we are dealing with a very bad joke”. But currently, “there are proven threats, which arrive through a channel that forces us to do what is necessary” to protect the public.
“These little jokers will be punished”
Then the difficult work begins, that of finding the authors. “These little jokers, these little puppets, who have fun with these false threats, will be found, will be punished”, assured the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti on Wednesday. The people who made the false alarms in recent days at the Palace of Versailles have, for example, not yet been identified. Investigators often only have the IP address from which the email originated as a starting point. The IP address is the unique electronic signature found on each computer, but many authors of false attack threats manage to cover their tracks.
Investigations by police officers specializing in “cyber” are therefore long-term and sometimes bear fruit. “A call or an email, there is always a digital signature and we always end up, even if it may take a little time, by getting back to the person behind it”says David Le Bars, secretary general of the SNCP.
In September, for example, two teenagers from Bordeaux aged around fifteen were indicted. They are suspected of having broadcast bomb threats 27 times in high schools. Giving a false alarm is punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.