Eighteen regional airports were targeted by bomb threats, the Minister for Transport said on Friday afternoon.
This is the third consecutive day of disruptions in French air transport, on the eve of the All Saints’ Day holidays. Eighteen regional airports were again targeted on Friday October 20 by bomb threats and ten of them were evacuated, declared the Minister for Transport, Clément Beaune.
These evacuations are “generally completed as we speak”he added in the middle of the afternoon. “We will not allow ourselves to be destabilized, we will have the greatest firmness” faced with false alarms, he repeated, adding that any false alarm would be the subject of a complaint.
Among others, Rennes airport (Ille-et-Vilaine) was the subject of an evacuation “as a precautionary measure”reported the Ille-et-Vilaine prefecture: “In order to remove any doubt, the police and a dog team are on site”. In Bordeaux (Gironde), “this day [vendredi] at 12 p.m., a new bomb threat once again forced us to evacuate the airport”confirmed the airport on its website, reporting shortly after the “gradual resumption of activities”.
Eighteen arrests in connection with these alerts
In Basel-Mulhouse, visitors also had to leave the airport grounds because of a bomb threat. “Decontamination in progress to remove doubts”wrote the Haut-Rhin prefecture on.
Other structures received alerts without evacuating. A spokesperson for Lille airport confirmed to AFP the receipt of a threatening email. “We have removed doubts with the police services” And “there was no evacuation”, she emphasized. Nantes airport confirmed for its part that it had been the subject of an “bomb threat threat”. An inspection is underway, but the airport has not been evacuated.
Thursday evening, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, mentioned 18 arrests in 48 hours in connection with these alerts, which also affect educational establishments or tourist places. The government has warned that each threat would be the subject of a complaint, with the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, denouncing “the little puppets who have fun with these threats, false in this case”. The criminal sanction can be up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.