For a week, hundreds of high schools and colleges throughout France have been targeted by threats of attacks sent via digital workspaces (ENT), which serve as a link between teachers, students and parents, internally for schools. What is going on ? What are the consequences ? Who are the perpetrators? What measures are being taken to deal with this situation? 20 minutes make the point.
Recall of facts
Hauts-de-France, the Grand-Est, Île-de-France but also the South and the West… In total, 323 threats, in 44 departments and 20 academies, have taken place in France since the middle of last week. The establishments concerned received threats of attacks, in particular bomb explosions, which were transmitted via the ENT. Some messages sent and received by students also contained a beheading video.
As indicated The world, in the majority of cases, these are threats of jihadist terrorist attacks. Some establishments received messages with Islamophobic remarks and swastikas. At each threat, a security system is deployed with the closure of certain establishments, the time to “remove doubt”. In certain cases, “listening cells” for students are also set up.
Suspension of ENT messaging “until the holidays”
To send these threats, it was not the ENTs that were hacked but the student accounts. Following a meeting held on Thursday to define “a shared roadmap aimed at better securing digital work spaces and school life software, in the short and medium term”, the Minister of Education , Nicole Belloubet announced the suspension of these messaging services. She promised the deployment of a “real digital shield” on X.
“We are going to suspend messaging in the ENTs, because we must, in any case as a preventative measure, stop” these events, “until the spring holidays without doubt,” she declared on RTL. And this so that “we can reset our students’ accounts and further secure” access to ENT messaging. Cutting access to messaging has already been decided in several regions, since the start of this wave of threats, such as in Pays-de-la-Loire.
Suspects arrested
Following these events, complaints were filed and investigations opened. Thursday, a 17-year-old minor was arrested and taken into police custody in Malakoff in Hauts-de-Seine, suspected of being the author of one of the hoaxes. The day before, the Strasbourg rectorate announced the identification of another suspect, whose “racist and terrorist” messages had disrupted around fifteen establishments in Bas-Rhin, reports The world. Last weekend, another young person was arrested, this time in Angoulême. He could be the author of around ten false alarms. Still according to the national daily, this young man has lived “reclusive, out of school since he was 15”. His only sociability comes through the forums on the Jeuxvideo.com site, said his lawyer, Me Agathe Le Chippey, interviewed by the newspaper.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal declared last week, after the first threats targeting establishments in Ile-de-France: “They think they will remain anonymous but we are tracking them. They think they are safe but we sanction them. Several dozen perpetrators of these threats, which occurred in recent months, have already been brought to justice [traduits en justice] “.
Update on the terrorist threat in France
On RTL, Nicole Belloubet recalled that “people who send such messages will be prosecuted and will be sanctioned […] Justice is harsh on false bomb threats and this type of malicious messages.” As a reminder, the perpetrators face penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros.