The number of reports of suspicious packages in the Paris metro jumped in October by 12% compared to last year,
Le Figaro
learned
from RATP, confirming information from Le
Parisien
.
Read also: Terrorism: DGSE - DGSI, the exclusive interview with intelligence chiefs
On average, 4.4 suspicious packages were reported per day during the month of October 2020, against 3.9 in October 2019. This increasing trend was confirmed over the first fourteen days of November 2020, since the RATP counted 5.4 reports per day on average, 1.3 more than in the same period last year.
Over the whole of 2020, the context linked to the health crisis has however drastically reduced the number of reports, since a total of 810 suspicious packages were spotted on the network between January and October 2020, against 1052 between January and October 2019, a decrease of 23%.
On average, the RATP has observed 2.7 abandoned packages per day since the start of the year.
"
Over the first ten months of the year, the daily maximum which has been reached is 12
", specifies in
Figaro
the management, with more than seven million daily underground journeys.
20 canine brigades ready to intervene
A suspicious package is not necessarily an explosive device: it is a container (sports bag, suitcase, etc.), abandoned, the content of which cannot be verified.
To examine the entire network, RATP security agents can count on no less than 15,000 surveillance cameras.
Read also: The RATP still relies on the clean bus despite the pandemic
When it spots abandoned luggage, the RATP takes first steps: sound alerts, evacuation of travelers, setting up a security perimeter ... The agents then deploy a cyno-detection team, made up of a dog sniffer, supposed to ensure the dangerousness, or not, of the abandoned object.
20 dog teams are ready to intervene across the entire network, says the RATP.
If the threat of the abandoned package is proven, the police take over and decide on the measures to be followed: passage of trains without stopping, total or partial interruption of traffic ... baggage by a deminer.
"
The average time of interruption of traffic per object left on board trains or on platforms is 10 minutes in 2020 against 26 minutes in 2016
", explains the RATP.
Read also: Islamism: how investigators track down those who advocate terrorism on the web
After the assassination of Samuel Paty, a guide recalling the rules in force concerning the fight against terrorism was distributed to 45,000 RATP employees, 27,000 of whom are in contact with the public, according to
Le Parisien
.
