Since the start of the trial of the November 13 attacks, the Paris courthouse has been bunkerized. The courtroom, in which the accused, civil parties, lawyers and magistrates meet every day, is subject to very particular surveillance by the security services. Explosives, dirty bomb like the one used in the Tokyo metro in 1995… The threats taken into account are numerous.
Every morning, a team from the national nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical cell of the gendarmerie therefore goes through this highly sensitive place with a fine comb and “checks the detainees” before they arrive in the courtroom, explains us. the one in command of this unit, the squadron leader Christophe Péré. Deminers are the first to work, followed by teams specializing in the detection of radioelements and biological and chemical substances. “We guarantee that after our passage, there is nothing” suspicious on the site.
Every year, the gendarmes of the C2NRBC – which celebrates its two decades of existence in 2021 – carry out around 80 missions of this type, whether on the occasion of football matches where the President of the Republic is present or of Heritage Days, in certain sites open to the public. Because “the terrorist threat is persistent”, insists Christophe Péré.
Terrorism, its men were directly confronted with it, six years ago. On January 9, 2015, after killing two police officers, a Sodexo employee and part of the editorial staff of Charlie weekly, the Kouachi brothers took refuge in a printing press in Dammartin-en-Goële (Seine-et-Marne), about forty kilometers north-east of Paris. The presence of chemicals in the building required the presence of these specialists alongside the GIGN soldiers who stormed.
“This is the first time that we were confronted with such a risk”
A sign that the subject is taken seriously by the authorities, the staff of the cell has multiplied by 3 since its creation in 2001. The two officers and 13 non-commissioned officers who are assigned to it are also a precious help for investigators. other services which cannot work in a “degraded environment”. They intervened in particular during the fire at the Lubrizol factory, in Petit-Quevilly, near Rouen, in September 2019. “The firefighters had watered the place so much that our boots sank into 40 cm of mud”, recalls the head of C2NRBC. Objective: to carry out observations in the field, made difficult by the presence of chemicals and asbestos. “This is the first time that we were faced with such a risk. “
Equipped with suits similar to Heisenberg’s in the series breaking Bad, operators can work 45 minutes straight before handing over to another shift. In June 2020, during the fire that ravaged the nuclear submarine Perle in Toulon, the members of the cell spent two days on site to help investigators from the research section of the maritime gendarmerie and experts from the ‘IRCGN to conduct the investigations. A drama had been narrowly avoided. “Luckily, they had emptied the primary circuit and the reactor a week before the fire”, blows the squadron leader Christophe Péré.
A new name in 2022
Removing these astronaut suits – waterproof and filtering – requires some practice. As well as mobile “modular decontamination” equipment made up of three vehicles, including in particular “showers, entry and exit airlocks for workers, and decontamination products”, specifies the senior officer. In order to avoid polluting the intervention area, the water used and clothing are entrusted to companies specializing in the destruction of contaminated products.
Unique in Europe, this unit is about to ramp up. In January 2022, a few months before the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games in Paris, the cell will become a “force”. “We will show, especially during sporting events organized in 2023 and 2024, its usefulness”, concludes squadron leader Peré.