Paris (France) (AFP) – A series of false bomb threats worries Europe this Friday, after dozens of similar alerts this week, directed against commercial flights but also against media outlets that have mobilized security forces.

First modification: 06/11/2026 - 15:56

Eleven flights to or from Prague have been the subject of a bomb alert, the Czech capital's airport told AFP.

Four new bomb alerts were also issued on Friday about planes flying over French territory, which landed "without incident" and in which demining services carried out safety inspections, the prime minister's services announced.

A Ryanair flight scheduled to leave Lisbon for Rome on Friday morning was also the target of a "bomb threat" that turned out to be unfounded, according to Portuguese authorities.

Following similar false threats earlier in the week, at least 20 flights had already been the subject of bomb alerts on Thursday. In all these cases no explosive was found.

"NATO continues to monitor the situation and coordinate closely with allies," commented the transatlantic organization.

The media sector was also the target of threats on Friday in Ireland.

The offices of several Irish media outlets, including the audiovisual group RTÉ, were evacuated on Friday morning after receiving a bomb alert.

"Hybrid operations"?

"We still don't know if this is a single person behind this operation or a coordinated action," Deputy Prime Minister Simon Harris declared on the radio, mentioning a "very serious and evolving situation."

This series of false alerts, difficult to attribute, has the consequence of mobilizing security services and sowing fear, at zero cost, experts emphasize.

Without prejudging the identity of the authors, "it must be seen in the framework of hybrid operations against European states," Jean-Marc Rickli, director of global and emerging risks at the Geneva Policy Center, reacted to AFP.

"It costs nothing to whoever does it, but it has an important impact at a logistical level and, of course, on the perception of the population. The authorities cannot ignore these alerts because, if one materializes, they will be considered responsible," he points out.

The uncertainty surrounding the authors of these alerts makes it even more difficult to find an answer.

Demands sent on Thursday to the airports of Rome and Sofia came from the "fighters of the Male State." This seems to refer to the name of a Russian ultranationalist movement, without it being possible to verify the link.

Europeans regularly accuse Russia and Iran of carrying out destabilization operations against them on their territory, whether with disinformation campaigns, sabotage or cyberattacks.

"Avoid overreacting"

In recent years "confrontational situations have arisen that are below the threshold of armed conflicts, in which States carry out hostile and destabilizing actions against other States", sometimes through intermediaries (proxies), underlines a European security source.

Among these situations he cited "cyber actions, information maneuvers, intimidation, or also the instrumentalization of migratory flows."

According to London Police Chief Mark Rowley, it will be about keeping a cool head.

"We have already experienced this in the past. When we faced terrorist threats linked to the IRA (Irish paramilitary group, ed.), decades ago, we talked about '10p terrorism': a false call announcing a bomb could disrupt an entire city. We had to learn to live by distinguishing between what was a joke and what was real," he declared on BBC 4 on Friday.

"In this new threat environment, with malicious actors in all four corners of the world, sometimes controlled by hostile states, we are going to have to adapt that same approach to avoid overreacting to every message we receive online."

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© 2026 AFP

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