On the 6th of August, an unidentified drone flew over Fort de Brégançon [Var], where President Macron spends his holidays with his wife. This incident was obviously taken very seriously by the authorities.
Also, in order to determine the identity of the owner of the drone in question, the public prosecutor of Toulon immediately opened an investigation for “overflight with unmanned aircraft of a prohibited area”. The latter was entrusted to the Brigade gendarmerie air transport.
“An interdepartmental decree dated March 14, 2008 created a restricted area prohibiting the overflight, by any aircraft, to less than 3,300 feet (about 1,000 meters) and within a radius of 3 kilometers including Fort Brégançon”, have indeed underlined authorities.
At first, it was not known if the drone had been shot down or recovered by its owner. In reality, according to the Prefecture of Var, the craft was neutralized by a “gps jammer“, which caused its fall. Only, the aircraft fell into the water … Hence the mobilization of the Maritime Gendarmerie and soldiers of the group of demining divers to try to find him.
“At the place where the drone crashed, there is about 30 meters deep,” said a judicial source, reports AFP.
Such an incident is not new. In January 2015, a drone also flew over the Élysée for a short time before leaving. The Paris prosecutor’s office then opened an investigation for “driving a non-compliant aircraft with safety rules. ”
In a context marked by the terrorist threat, sending a drone over a building housing the head of state is not trivial. Of course, this may be (and it is very likely that it is) the work of a quidam with misplaced curiosity or a paparazzi in search of scoop. But the trail of a malicious act or terrorist is also to be taken into account, especially since the Islamic State (IS or Daesh) has developed procedures involving the use of such devices.