Daniel Craig as James Bond

Drones spotted over French nuclear plants: could be the next James Bond

By Marie Decreme
06/11/2014

In less than a month, eight of the nineteen French nuclear power plants have been flown over by mysterious drones. According to Bruno Comby, an engineer from the world renowned Ecole Polytechnique, these small flying machines could well be “mapping France’s nuclear facilities”, to bring France down first and the whole of Europe later. A script worthy of a great James Bond film…

Late October 2014, the French authorities spotted mysterious drones flying over their nuclear facilities. In less than a month, thirteen of their nineteen power plants have been visited by these machines, some of them several times; a predicament for the government who wonders who is hiding behind these drones. They were detected simultaneously, thousands of kilometres away from each other; the people responsible for this are clearly not amateurs.

Baylais nuclear plant

The Ministry of Home Affairs is worried: these flying machines may be mapping  France’s nuclear facilities… something is going on, something serious. The secret services are on it, M and Bond take over the investigation. This is not just a matter of national security. This is much bigger: if France falls then Europe will as well.

Of course, the small devices spotted over the nuclear plants are not dangerous. They are after all remotely controlled by a simple smart phone and they are too light to carry explosives. But these drones have only been flying by night, they use an infrared camera and they record the different hot spots of the power plants; the reactors… and the generators which are more vulnerable.

A small drone

The threat is major. Ten kilos of explosive may not cause colossal damage to a nuclear reactor, but to a well-targeted generators this would be different. So imagine what could happen if more than one generator were out of action; the electric power supply would simply come to a halt, paralysing the entire French economy. Europe would not take long to be affected as well.So assume that the drones can identify the exact locations of this type of installation then the people controlling them are in a position to destroy them… Yes, but let’s keep calm because there are spare generators after all. Oh, good! How many are there? Four. So if let’s say fifteen generators are attacked at the same time and destroyed, the whole electric national grid would come to a halt and France would fall into darkness because not all thirteen generators can be replaced at the same time, right? Right. No more factories, no more communications… a total blackout.

The secret services figured it all out: these drones are on a reconnaissance mission to carry out a terrorist attack to knock France and Europe down. That is usually when James Bond steps in, with his various gadgets and super cars all adapted by Q. Sent by M, 007 tries to find who is behind the plot. Who would benefit if France and Europe were to fall? Would it be the Islamic State, at war against the international coalition that France is a part of? Or maybe Russia, removed from the G8 six months earlier and dreaming of regaining its status as a super power controlling Eastern Europe thanks to its natural resources? South Korea, China or even the US? Total drama.

A plant as seen from the air

Let’s hope that Bruno Comby’s hypothesis will only be seen on the big screen. For now, the French authorities refuse to sound alarmist about these drones. The Home Affairs Minister affirmed that these drones did not represent a danger to the security of the nuclear plants. They are built to resist strong seismic movements and plane crashes. The government declared: “we must keep a sense of proportion: no minimising, but no dramatising. In the meantime, the identity of the perpetrators and their motives are unknown. Terrorist threat, environment movement agenda, work of jokers? No lead for the moment, the mystery remains unsolved.