Fourteen regional airports were targeted by bomb threats on Friday morning, and three were evacuated, according to concordant sources.
The alerts have caused a third consecutive day of travel chaos to French air transport on the eve of the All Saints’ Day holidays.
According to airport sources, 14 regional hubs are affected, including two that have been evacuated, Bordeaux and Béziers.
In addition to these two airports, Lille, Beauvais, Tarbes, Nantes, Brest, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Lyon-Bron, Pau, Nice, Biarritz and Rennes have received threatening messages.
Rennes was also evacuated "as a precautionary measure," according to the Ille-et-Vilaine prefecture, "in order to remove any doubt, the forces of law and order and a dog-handling team are on site."
In Bordeaux, “at 12:00 noon today, a new bomb threat has once again forced us to evacuate the airport”, the airport authority confirmed on its website.
A spokeswoman for Lille airport confirmed to AFP that it had received a threatening e-mail. “We clarified all doubts with the police” and “there was no evacuation”, she stressed.
Beauvais airport, on the other hand, refused to confirm any alert. “We are operating normally, there has been no evacuation”, an official told AFP.
Nantes airport confirmed that, like other airports on Wednesday and Thursday, it had received a “bomb threat” on Friday morning. An inspection is underway but the airport has not been evacuated.
This is the third day in a row that such alerts have disrupted airport operations, just as the All Saints’ Day holidays, synonymous with an increase in passenger numbers, get underway across France on Friday evening.
