Establishments in Hauts-de-France targeted by attack threats

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: FREDERIC SCHEIBER / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 1:27 p.m., March 23, 2024

Messages threatening attacks targeting establishments in Hauts-de-France were broadcast this Friday evening and Saturday morning via their hacked Digital Work Spaces (ENT), AFP learned from a police source and from the rectorate of Amiens. “On Monday, 122 establishments will explode,” is written in a message consulted by AFP, sent to parents of students at a Lille college. The author of the message also threatens to attack the Cnews television channel, owned by billionaire Vincent Bolloré.

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“Each situation is managed on a case-by-case basis”

In the neighboring Amiens academy, "the ENT accounts of several establishments were hacked last night", the Amiens rectorate told AFP, without being able to specify the number of establishments affected.

Like the one sent to the Lille college, the message received by the establishments of the Amiens academy "clearly reports a number of establishments" targeted, adds the rectorate, which specifies that "the threat seems to concern several departments" and academies. “Regarding the impact on Monday, each situation is managed on a case-by-case basis thanks to coordination between prefecture, police, gendarmerie and establishment”, in conjunction with the rectorate and the Ministry of Education, adds the rectorate of 'Amiens.

“Complaints will be filed”

“Several” reports were made on the Pharos platform, which allows illicit content to be reported online, a police source told AFP. “Complaints will be filed,” assures the Amiens rectorate. Around fifty establishments in Ile-de-France, mainly high schools, suffered a similar wave on Wednesday and Thursday, via the sending of attack threat messages on their ENT platforms accompanied by a beheading video.

"They think they remain anonymous but we track them. They think they are safe but we sanction them. Several dozen perpetrators of these threats, which occurred in recent months, have already been brought to justice," said Thursday evening Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, following an interministerial meeting on the security of educational establishments in Matignon. The government counted 800 false bomb threats in mid-November during a previous series of alerts in the fall. They multiplied after the jihadist attack which cost the life of teacher Dominique Bernard, in Arras (Pas-de-Calais), on October 13.