Mystery Drone Overflights of French Nuclear Power Plants

Autumn 2014. France's nuclear plants were run by EDF and guarded by gendarmes. The airspace above them was off limits. Sources disagree on the radius, 2.5 km or 5 km. The height limit was 1,000 m, and the penalty up to one year in prison and €75,000.

5 October 2014. Creys-Malville, in Isère. A plant already being decommissioned. Something flew over it. Then Blayais on 13 October. Then Cattenom. On the night of 19 October, four plants at once: Gravelines, Bugey, Chooz and Nogent-sur-Seine. Bugey was overflown again the next night. And again on 24 October.

The gendarmes on guard described what they saw. General Michel Pattin, operations director of the Gendarmerie nationale, later told parliament: "lights were indeed seen: steady white lights crossing the airspace of the nuclear plants, sometimes blinking red or green." Wingspans ranged from 30 to 40 centimetres up to 1.5 to 3 metres. EDF said they were "spotted late in the evening, at night or very early in the morning." Analysts at ESISC placed every flight between 7 pm and midnight.

30 October, around 9 pm. Gendarmes detected aircraft over Golfech and Penly. They were not shot down. They posed no direct threat. The next night, the SGDSN counted six plants overflown simultaneously, among them Dampierre-en-Burly, Flamanville, Saint-Laurent-des-Eaux and Fessenheim. The flights went on into November. Areva La Hague on 14 November.

The tally kept climbing. Seven plants. Then about 15 flights. Then at least 16. Louis Gautier, head of the SGDSN, eventually spoke of 40 events at 19 sensitive sites since 10 September. About one a day. He saw "coordination and organisation of what could be called a harassment manoeuvre."

EDF filed a complaint for every plant. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed a judicial investigation, adding that "the best way to be effective in this area is not to say what we're doing." Environment Minister Ségolène Royal said investigators "have no leads." The French Air Force opened an inquiry. In January 2015 an OPECST report by Senator Bruno Sido and Deputy Jean-Yves Le Déaut gathered the testimony. Pattin said: "we have a few photos, but they are not very precise and don't give a clear outline." He added that "most of these suspected cases were not confirmed… a few overflights are established, but others remain uncertain."

On 5 November, near Belleville-sur-Loire, two men and a woman were detained with a drone of about 80 cm. The Bourges prosecutor called them harmless modelling enthusiasts, not suspects in the wider wave. On 12 October 2016 the Bourges criminal court found two men guilty of flying over a prohibited zone, then exempted them from punishment.

ESISC offered four hypotheses: hobbyists, radical environmentalists, terrorist reconnaissance, or criminal blackmail and mockery of the state. Christophe Naudin suspected professionals, perhaps "a group acting for Greenpeace." Greenpeace replied: "we insist we are not involved in these flights whatsoever." Elizabeth Quintana of RUSI saw "somebody who… is either looking to spy or is up to no good." Later, the UFO research collective CIPO France folded the wave into UAP discussion. The witness claims it cites have never been corroborated.

February 2015. At least five drones over Paris, from the Eiffel Tower to the US Embassy. Cazeneuve spoke of about 60 flights over the plants and Paris since October. The drones were civilian models. The operators, as AP put it, "were never found."