A spate of mystery drones flying over French nuclear plants has led the country to launch a program aimed at developing ways of detecting and intercepting them, officials said Thursday.
Around 20 unidentified drones have been spotted over nuclear plants since October 19 throughout France, the AFP reported.
Police are clueless as to who is piloting the unmanned aircraft at a time of heightened vigilance in the face of terrorist attacks around the world. France is heavily dependent on nuclear power.
France’s General Secretariat of Defense and National Security has put France’s National Research Agency in charge of developing the 1-million-euro program ($1.2 million) aimed at finding ways to detect and intercept such drones.
France plans to share its findings with other European countries.
French law bans small, civilian drones from areas such as nuclear facilities, which are protected by a no-fly zone that spans a 2.5-kilometre (1.6-mile) radius and a height of 1,000 meters.
State-run power company EDF was the first to ring the alarm bells when it announced it had filed a complaint with police after detecting the small unmanned aerial vehicles zipping over seven nuclear plants last month.
Since then, more drones fitted with propellers have been spotted above nuclear facilities.
