Rémi Jacob, with AFP 10:07 a.m., March 3, 2023

Justice has opened an investigation after the overflight of a prohibited area by a drone used by journalist Hugo Clément during a report on the production of hydrogen by Air Liquide in Seine-Maritime, the prosecutor of Le Havre said on Wednesday.

Justice has opened an investigation after the overflight of a prohibited area by a drone used by journalist Hugo Clément (

Sur le Front

) during a report on the production of hydrogen by Air Liquide in Seine-Maritime, said Wednesday the prosecutor of Le Havre.

In a video posted on his Instagram account on Tuesday, the journalist, a declared environmental protection activist, announced that he had been the subject of a police check near the Air Liquide industrial site in Port-Jérôme-sur-Seine. (Seine Maritime).

In particular, he showed the seizure of equipment by a “substitute prosecutor” in the trunk of a car, surrounded by police vehicles.

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“We sent filming requests, without success”

"We sent filming requests, without success. Refusal after refusal. So we came anyway, without authorization," he says.

According to a police source, the team, made up of Hugo Clément and two other people, was seen filming Air Liquide's "Seveso" classified site in Port-Jérôme, located in a vast complex housing many other chemical and petroleum facilities, such as the Esso refinery.

The site security service alerted the police who intervened.

The journalists not having a filming authorization and a drone being visible in their vehicle, they warned the prosecution.

No custody measures

"The code of criminal procedure requires that searches in the premises of a press company or in the professional vehicles of these companies be carried out by a magistrate", explained to AFP the public prosecutor of Le Havre, Bruno Dieudonné. .

"A substitute moved to the scene for this purpose. Two drones equipped with cameras were seized and will be operated" as part of an investigation "opened for overflight by an aircraft of a prohibited area, an offense punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros", he specifies. "There was no measure of police custody and the people retained on the spot by the security service and controlled by the police will be heard later", adds Bruno Dieudonné.