PARIS— Security officials are investigating a mysterious wave of drone
flights that have buzzed illegally over more than a dozen nuclear plants
across France, raising security concerns around the country’s primary energy source.
Between
Oct. 5 and Nov. 2, guards at 13 nuclear plants, many of which are
operated by the French electricity giant EDF, spotted several drones
flying over the sites, including in Le Blayais, in southwestern France,
and Gravelines in the north.
A
French government official said the drones were small and civilian or
commercial, not military drones. “Our main concern is that the drones
will take photos and video footage of the plants,” said the official,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security issues.
“One of our security concerns is to avoid having any precise images’ being taken of the nuclear plant,” the official added.
On
Saturday, the Secretariat General for National Defense and Security, an
interministerial body under the authority of the prime minister, issued
a statement calling the drone flights an “organized provocation” aimed
at “disrupting the surveillance chain and protection of these sites.”
The
tension over the drones mounted recently when Ségolène Royal, the
environment minister, said that she did not “have any lead” about who
might be piloting the drones.
Some immediate suspicion fell on the environmental group Greenpeace, but it denied any involvement and raised the potential vulnerability of the nuclear sites to terrorism.
The
government, the group said, had not taken adequate precautions to
safeguard the sites, including pools where spent fuel is kept. The sites
were vulnerable and did not comply with additional security measures
that were supposed to have been put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks
in the United States, it said.
“Today
none of our nuclear plants could resist a plane crash,” Yannick
Rousselet, a Greenpeace nuclear campaigner, said on Europe 1 radio. He
added that a drone carrying explosives would present “an extremely
important security issue.”
The
French authorities said the nuclear plants were not vulnerable to the
drones, and the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said that measures
to “neutralize” the drones were in place.
But
exactly what countermeasures had been taken, he and other officials
would not say. Nor would they speculate on who might be behind the
flights.
According
to the newspaper Le Figaro, which quoted an anonymous government
official, police officers are ordered to shoot down any aircraft that
could threaten the plants. “And this also applies to the drones,” the
official said.
France
has 19 nuclear plants and 58 nuclear reactors that supply nearly 75
percent of the country’s electricity. They are supposed to be built to
withstand earthquakes and plane crashes.
Under
French law, overflights of nuclear sites are illegal. They are
punishable by a year in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros, or about
$94,000, if an aircraft flies within a perimeter of five kilometers, or
about three miles, around the site and one kilometer above it.