French police are searching for the pilots behind mysterious drones that were seen cruising over Paris landmarks and secured compounds on Monday and Tuesday nights. The country has been hit by a series of mysterious drone overflights at nuclear plants and more recently over the presidential palace, and the fresh sightings come at a time of heightened security following last month’s jihadist attacks that left 17 people dead.
The first drone sighting was near the US embassy in the French capital just after midnight, prompting police to follow the unmanned aircraft which continued on towards the Invalides military museum. But they soon lost sight of the drone and later in the night, four other pilotless aircraft were spotted at several Paris landmarks including the Eiffel Tower, the Place de la Concorde and the Montparnasse tower, the tallest skyscraper in the French capital.
All the drones spotted were described as standard, small models of pilotless aircraft available commercially, which police say are too light to cause significant damage if crashed into a building, even a nuclear power plant.
Unmanned aerial vehicles are already prohibited across the French capital, the Wall Street Journal reports, but the flights spotted this week have raised surveillance concerns in a city that is on high alert after the January terrorist attacks. Operating a drone in France illegally carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a €75,000 (£55,000) fine.
After the sightings, police said a “working group” of 10 officers specialised in aviation had been set up to develop an approach to unauthorised drone flights.
