Like a dive into the 1980s when pirate radios challenged the state monopoly on the airwaves.
The antenna of France Inter on the FM band was once again hacked Sunday evening during the second round of the presidential election.
The official broadcast of the show dedicated to the results has been replaced, at least in a good part of eastern Paris, by a strange montage of speeches by Emmanuel Macron against a backdrop of esoteric music.
The hack began as President-elect Emmanuel Macron launched into his speech and lasted for an hour.
Radio France, on which public radio France Inter depends, confirmed that the 87.6 frequency had been alternated.
“We are in contact with Arcom
(the audiovisual regulator, ex-CSA)
to verify what happened and conducted an investigation which could take several days”, explained the public group.
A sector of Paris already targeted
During the first round of the presidential election, the antenna of the public radio had already been hacked on its FM network in Paris-Est when the first results were announced.
A listening interference had taken place and a speech had been broadcast on a loop, which, according to the daily Le Monde, was "directed against politicians, technocrats or even journalists".
This scenario seems to have repeated itself in an area where the presence of two radio antennas on imposing towers has historically posed broadcasting problems.
Faced with complaints from listeners, Radio France had deployed digital terrestrial radio or DAB + as a priority, but also installed a small radio relay transmitter a few years ago for this population base of around 40,000 inhabitants.
A loophole in the system and an opportunity for hackers with minimal technical knowledge.
Read alsoDAB +, digital terrestrial radio is accelerating its deployment
“This is an unsophisticated analogue radio hack where a low power (100W) transmitter was overpowered by a stronger signal from a cheap and slightly more powerful 200W device, but its location in height was enough to obtain the good propagation”, explains Alain Sibille, professor emeritus at Telecom Paris and specialist in waves.
The sale of radio transmitters, easily found on the Internet from 500 euros, is not prohibited, but their use is regulated and the allocation of frequencies is the responsibility of Arcom.
"They had to quickly stop the pirate broadcast, because it is also a radio technique that is easy for the authorities to spot as the signal is concentrated from a single point located high enough on a building", specifies the expert.
No information has filtered on the authors of this hack, who are actively sought.
Radio France affirms that, contrary to what had been indicated Sunday evening, the frequencies of France Inter of Lyon were not touched Sunday evening.