According to information from Europe 1, 70 relay antennas were vandalized in 2020 in France.
The profiles of the attackers are varied, from anti 5G to anarchists.
Each site destroyed goes hand in hand with a loss of signal for millions of French people and costly repairs for operators.
INVESTIGATION
A 230-meter-high pylon in flames: this is the impressive spectacle that the firefighters had to master, including specialists from the Groupement d 'intervention en milieu perileux, Monday, January 11.
They had been called in the night to intervene on the fire of a relay antenna near the village of Cars, not far from Limoges, in Haute-Vienne.
An incident far from isolated.
According to information from Europe 1, 70 antennas were vandalized during the year 2020, a phenomenon that worries operators and site managers, who are trying to organize themselves with the police to prevent attacks. from disparate groups.
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Frequent attacks from different protest groups
Antenna damage is frequent: there is an average attack every five days in France, with an unprecedented peak observed in a few weeks in the spring.
But they are at the same time rare because there are 50,000 antennas on the territory, just for the mobile network, and 80,000 if we add the sites dedicated only to the broadcasting of radio and television.
In the collective imagination, which says antenna, says metal pylon which points towards the sky.
This is the case only for some of the sites, mainly in rural areas.
In town, the antennas are in fact hidden in boxes themselves placed on the roofs of buildings.
REPORT>
We visited a 5G antenna
"These are mainly isolated sites that are targeted, on the outskirts of large cities," says Nicolas Guérin, president of the French Telecoms Federation.
"The damage is diverse: it ranges from fractured grids to the complete fire of the site, including a little material destroyed with tools."
The profiles of those who attack the antennae are varied.
They are protesters, of all ages but not all from the same movement.
"We are facing violent movements scattered throughout the country. The threat is diffuse", worries Jean-Louis Mounier, general manager of the TowerCo BU (infrastructures) of TDF, the main manager of antennas in France.
According to the elements obtained by Europe 1, there is first of all the anti-5G, which destroyed the antennas as early as last spring, even before the network was deployed, because they believe that 5G is harming the environment. , health, animals or that it contributes to the spread of the Covid.
There are also radical yellow vests and anarcho-autonomous activists, anti-network activists, anti-media, against so-called widespread surveillance.
Some claim their fight and even post advice on the Internet on how to destroy an antenna.
And then there are those, on the fringes, who act out of stupidity, mimicry or under the influence of alcohol.
Long and complex repairs
The consequences of these attacks are numerous and very concrete.
In December, for example, a site was set on fire in Marseille, depriving 3.5 million people of radio and TV for several days.
In Limoges, there are 1.5 million people affected and, this time, the mobile network is also affected.
In all cases, the effects are felt for several days because antenna repairs are very complex, particularly in the case of pylons tens of meters high.
© Clément Lesaffre / Europe 1
"Initially, our teams restore the service in a degraded way: partial coverage of the area, degraded speed for mobile telephony. Then, they set up permanent and definitive systems", explains Jean-Louis Mounier, of TDF.
It takes a few days to reestablish a partial signal but we are talking about weeks or even months before a return to normal.
"It takes 18 to 24 months to build an antenna. If the equipment is completely destroyed, that is the time limit that may apply to rebuild it."
A new antenna costs between 100 and 200,000 euros
And all this comes at a cost: installing an antenna costs between 100 and 200,000 euros.
In the case of pylons that are sometimes 100 or 200 meters high, if the fire destroys the entire site, it is necessary to rebuild from scratch.
And even in the event of minor damage, we are talking about tens of thousands of euros of equipment to be replaced.
“Beyond the cost, what is annoying is that all the resources that go into these repairs come at the expense of improving the quality of the network. When you need to repair a site, the staff is diverted from the coverage of white areas, "underlines Nicolas Guérin, president of the French Telecoms Federation.
© Clément Lesaffre / Europe 1
Additional problem for the operators: the attacked antennas are often isolated sites, without reserve of material on site.
"The first thing to do is to route the necessary equipment, transmitters, cables. It's long," says Jean-Luc Mounier.
"Then you have to bring everything up to standard, it's a time of consolidation which also takes time."
Antenna security, a headache for operators
Operators are very concerned about these attacks and cultivate secrecy around the location of their antennas.
In the current climate of mistrust of 5G, they are taking no risk because site security is already a headache.
"We have 50,000 sites in France, it is unthinkable to organize rounds", says Nicolas Guérin.
And when an antenna is destroyed, even if its location is compromised, it is impossible to rebuild it elsewhere.
"We do not choose the sites at random. If an antenna has been placed in such and such a place, it is because it is there that it makes it possible to provide optimal coverage", adds Jean-Louis Mounier, of TDF.
It is therefore necessary to strengthen the security of existing sites.
According to our information, an agreement to improve cooperation between operators, antenna managers and police services is currently being drawn up under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior.
This will essentially involve better anticipating attacks and improving the transmission of information for investigations.
"The goal is to allow the police to intervene more effectively. The operators provide them with information on the location of the antennas and, in return, they show us the weaknesses of our sites", specifies Nicolas Guérin.
The objective is therefore to be able to better identify attacks upstream.
Because, a posteriori, these attacks are taken very seriously by the authorities.
In the case of the Limoges-Les Cars branch fire, a dog brigade surveyed the destroyed site and its surroundings for two days.
And, often, justice is done: in half of the investigations, there have already been arrests and several convictions, up to four years in prison imposed last summer by the court of Lons-le-Saulnier.