In October 2022, four former employees of RTE, the company managing the public electricity transmission network, were arrested, handcuffed, and placed in police custody for seventy-six hours at the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), for “computer sabotage”. A crime punishable by article 411-9 of the penal code evoking “harming the fundamental interests of the nation” and liable to fifteen years in prison. Wrongly, judged the Paris Criminal Court, Tuesday, March 28.
For having programmed three times, in June and July 2022, “telecontrol losses”a cut in the computer system that allows remote control of high-voltage electrical substations as part of a mobilization for salary increases, the four men were only found guilty of the simple offense “obstructing the operation of a computerized data processing system” and sentenced to fines. Quite heavy moreover, from 5,000 to 10,000 euros.
But the judgment is a scathing disavowal for the spectacular procedure used against these agents, which had stunned the trade union world in the fall. The court in fact considered that there were no elements ” enough (…) to implement this article derogating from common law” what is the 411-9, an exceptional procedure, in its means of investigation and its measures of constraint.
No reason to arrest these men for sabotage
And this, because from his first contact with the DGSI, on July 29, 2022, the RTE security manager mentioned the hypothesis of actions within the framework of a social movement, and that this hypothesis was confirmed by investigative acts from the month of August. There was therefore no reason to arrest these men for sabotage in October, when no one really thought the nation was in danger.
It was not until the end of their seventy-six hours in police custody that the facts had been reclassified as an offence, computer sabotage abandoned.
The court quashed all the pleadings that arose from the abuse of this count, in particular those collected thanks to the exceptional extension of police custody and telephone tapping.
Fear of “uncontrolled” power cuts
Beyond this unprecedented procedure, the seriousness of the facts had also been discussed at length at the hearing on February 28. When the defense was pleading a trivial “recovery of the work tool”, liable to a fine, RTE said it feared power cuts “uncontrolled” in Hauts-de-France, Belgium and England. The company had been followed by the prosecutor, who had requested six to eight months in prison suspended and a fine of 7,000 euros for each.
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