Threats of attacks targeting schools have increased in France in recent days, forcing the evacuation of students and staff on multiple occasions. This was the case on September 20 at the Ozanam high school in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), after receiving an email containing “a threat linked to the presence of explosives in the establishment”. The high school was evacuated and the police quickly intervened to secure the premises. No trace of explosives had been found.
According to the Rennes public prosecutor, the email was sent on September 19 at 11:50 p.m. to the secretariat’s mailbox, leading to the evacuation of the school the next morning when the message was opened. The prosecution specifies that the threats were made “against a backdrop of radical Islamism”, specifying that no arrests had taken place.
The investigation was entrusted to the Rennes judicial police under the qualifications of “threat of crime or misdemeanor against people or property” but also “disclosure of false information in order to make people believe in dangerous destruction”. Facts which carry a sentence of six years in prison and 45,000 euros.
A minor was arrested
Several schools have had to be evacuated in recent days after the increase in terrorist threats, particularly in Normandy and the Paris region. A minor was arrested and taken into custody. “This type of particularly unacceptable threat constitutes a serious attack on the tranquility of the educational community and also presents a particularly anxiety-provoking character in the real context of the terrorist threat that we are experiencing,” said Rennes prosecutor Philippe Astruc.