Nearly 70 false bomb alerts have targeted French airports since Wednesday, sent from “almost always the same email address”, indicated Sunday the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune who was the guest of Political issues (France inter, France TV, The world). “Since Wednesday, it is almost always the same email address that is used, located outside the European Union, in Switzerland,” he detailed, suggesting that this put the authors of this “typical email which looks the same from one day to the next” beyond the reach of certain sanctions in the EU.
These alerts are the work not of “little jokers” but of “big idiots or even big delinquents”, the minister further underlined. Regarding their motivation, “there can be a mixture, between people who make bad jokes, who want to scare people for real, and sometimes also a kind of competition in stupidity between hackers,” he suggested. .
Hosting sites invited to help the French authorities
Clément Beaune invited hosting sites to help the French authorities: “Everyone has a responsibility, including platforms and social networks, to not support this type of attack and to cooperate as quickly as possible with aviation French civil society and our justice”. Making false alarms is “extremely dangerous” because it mobilizes security forces “for several hours” and forces an evacuation “in some cases so that” people gather outside which is also a security problem », recalled the minister.
Clément Beaune indicated that he had asked each airport, for each alert received by email or call, to systematically file a complaint. In total, “more than 60 investigations, all locations combined, have been launched,” he said.