France To Protect Euro 2016 With Anti-Drone Tech

France To Protect Euro 2016 With Anti-Drone Tech

Soldiers walk past giant letters reading "UEFA EURO 2016" as they patrol on February 3, 2016, in Lille, northern France, where some of the Euro 2016 football matches will take place. The upcoming UEFA Euro 2016 European football championship will take place in France from June 10 to July 10, 2016. / AFP / PHILIPPE HUGUEN

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In the current climate, large events must take every possible precaution to protect visitors. For the Euro 2016 football championship, France is employing every available means to assure the safety of players and spectators. To protect against the emerging danger from terrorist drone attacks, France will employ anti-drone technology to restrict and take over the control of any drone breaching strict no-fly zones over the stadiums.

Euro 2016 security chief Ziad Khoury has said that strict no-fly zones will be declared and enforced over all ten stadiums where games will be held as well as training ground for the twenty-four teams participating in the tournament, according to the BBC.

“We’ve noted the general proliferation of drone-usage in society,” Khoury said. “So no-fly zones will be defined over every training ground and every stadium, and in most stadiums and for most matches anti-drone measures — which are quite innovative — will be deployed, working with the state, which will interfere with drones and take control of them if they are spotted.”

French security forces have been training in preparation for the possibility of drones being used to spread chemical agents over crowded areas. French police conducted a practice drill in Saint-Etienne, one of the Euro 2016 locations, in April. In the drill, police practiced a scenario with a drone carrying chemical arms plunging into Geoffroy Guichard Stadium to attack spectators.

Khoury doesn’t expect that this sort of scenarios will actually occur, but he says that when preparing for an “event of this size, you must imagine all scenarios, even the most unlikely.” Intelligence services have no specific information about an attack of this kind being planned, but it’s better to be prepared, he said.

“The idea is not to destroy the drones, because there could be collateral damage, notably if they crashed into the public. It is to prevent them from flying over the stadiums and perhaps to arrest their pilots,” Khoury said.