France vows crackdown on 'little jokers' after multiple fake bomb alerts
France's justice minister vowed to crack down on "the little jokers" behind a flurry of false bomb alerts that caused chaos at airports and tourist sites on Wednesday and Thursday.
Emailed "threats of attack" combined with abandoned luggage scares to trigger evacuations at 15 airports including Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Nice, Toulouse and Beauvais near Paris, leading to hours of delays on Wednesday and the cancellation of 130 flights.
Thursday also saw bomb threats emailed to airports with at least eight evacuated - mostly smaller airports including Carcassonne, Bordeaux and Montpellier.
The Palace of Versailles, a major tourist attraction outside Paris, was evacuated on both Wednesday and Thursday - the fourth security alert since Saturday - with bomb disposal teams called to check the site.
READ ALSO Should I be worried by French terror alerts?
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said "the little jokers" behind the false alerts would be found and punished.
"They will be found, they will be punished and their parents will be required to reimburse the damages they have caused" if they are minors, he said.
The maximum penalty in France for making a false bomb threat is two years in jail and a €30,000 fine.
France is on high alert following Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel and Friday's fatal stabbing of a teacher at a school in the northern city of Arras by a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The school was evacuated due to a bomb alert on Monday just as a minute's silence for the murdered teacher was due to be held, while the Louvre museum was also evacuated on Saturday due to a bomb threat.
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Emailed "threats of attack" combined with abandoned luggage scares to trigger evacuations at 15 airports including Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Nice, Toulouse and Beauvais near Paris, leading to hours of delays on Wednesday and the cancellation of 130 flights.
Thursday also saw bomb threats emailed to airports with at least eight evacuated - mostly smaller airports including Carcassonne, Bordeaux and Montpellier.
The Palace of Versailles, a major tourist attraction outside Paris, was evacuated on both Wednesday and Thursday - the fourth security alert since Saturday - with bomb disposal teams called to check the site.
READ ALSO Should I be worried by French terror alerts?
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said "the little jokers" behind the false alerts would be found and punished.
"They will be found, they will be punished and their parents will be required to reimburse the damages they have caused" if they are minors, he said.
The maximum penalty in France for making a false bomb threat is two years in jail and a €30,000 fine.
France is on high alert following Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel and Friday's fatal stabbing of a teacher at a school in the northern city of Arras by a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The school was evacuated due to a bomb alert on Monday just as a minute's silence for the murdered teacher was due to be held, while the Louvre museum was also evacuated on Saturday due to a bomb threat.
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