It is a worrying fact, to say the least, which occurred the day after the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine attack.
On Saturday, a man with a knife entered the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.
Stopped by security guards, he was finally able to leave the scene.
This event, without consequence, worries all the same the police and the justice system.
And questions arise as to the functioning of the security of this highly symbolic monument of the department when a terrorist has once again struck in the Yvelines.
X-ray detected
The scene took place in the early afternoon.
Around 2:20 p.m., a man, who could be between 30 and 40 years old, shows up, entirely dressed in black, in front of the castle with a bag on his back.
He walks past the security guards who use their X-ray machine to detect that his bag contains a knife with a 21 cm blade.
He is immediately warned that he cannot visit the premises with such a weapon and that he must necessarily leave his bag and knife at the locker.
The visitor accepts, deposits everything, and stays a few minutes inside the building.
He visits the gardens a bit before picking up his bag and knife and then quietly leaving the place.
An outfit similar to that of "the men who carried out the Brussels attack"
An hour later, the castle security service warns the police of the arrival of this disturbing visitor.
The police can only see thanks to the video surveillance that this man with the outfit resembling that "of the men who perpetrated the attack in Brussels" fled in the rue Colbert before disappearing.
"We do not know who he is and what his intentions were, but the risk is real," said a source close to the case.
At this hour, there were visitors in the park and the risk of a knife attack cannot be excluded in a place as symbolic as this one ”.
Investigators from the Versailles police station are responsible for carrying out the investigations.
“When this man came out, he was given his knife back,” says Versailles prosecutor Maryvonne Caillibotte.
He is therefore a complete stranger to this day.
I will make a point with the management of the castle on the safety instructions.
"
No strengthening of security measures
At the castle, which accommodates around 2,000 people a day during this period of health crisis, management specifies that "the instructions are clear and applied".
"The context of the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine attack prompted our agents to report the event to the police," she explains, while specifying that she was "unable to confirm" that it was an hour would have elapsed between the departure of this man and the alert to the police.
The management of the Palace of Versailles also underlines that it is "not considered obligatory in our regulations to have to report to the police any person who would appear at the entrance of the Palace with a prohibited object such as scissors or a knife. ", But that" it is really as a precaution that we have taken this step and that we have even made images available to the police.
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For the moment, it is not planned by the management of the monument to implement new protection measures because, according to it, "the security services work in perfect collaboration with the police station", in particular as regards "the fight against pickpockets and surveillance of the monument and visitors ”.
VIDEO. October 2019 in Paris, an employee of the police headquarters killed 4 people with a knife
