Côtes du drone French cops to use state of the art tech to track Euro 2016 louts
ENGLAND yobs pose the biggest threat to police at Euro 2016 and will be tracked by state-of-the-art drones, a top French cop warned.
The hi- tech flying devices will be deployed along with riot officers and sniffer dogs to keep tabs on thousands of travelling fans.
Police hope that by monitoring crowd movements they can avert violence at the tournament, which kicks off on Friday.
But officers admit that England supporters – up to 70,000 of whom may arrive without tickets – are seen as the single highest-risk group.
Around 2,000 of them have already been banned from France for the length of the competition – two-thirds of the total number of foreign fans excluded. Commander Antoine Boutonnet, in charge of the police anti-terrorist initiative, said: “They represent a huge contingent.” Mr Boutonnet said England’s second match against Wales in Lens on June 16 was “particularly sensitive”, adding: “We’ve been working on it for a long while.” But concentration will be focused before that on the Three Lions’ first Group B fixture, against Russia in Marseille next Saturday. The southern coastal city, known as France’s “Kalashnikov Capital”, hosts the match at its 67,394-capacity Stade Velodrome within walking distance of fan zones on the beach.
Tracking drones, riot squads and dogs will all be deployed in the city after the perceived hooligan threat level for the game was raised – indicating police are braced for “a serious risk of disturbance of public order”.
More than 200 CCTV cameras will be monitored in a control room by a special police team backed up by five commanders from the UK.
Squads of specialist officers from the Gendarmerie Nationale will be on standby armed with revolvers, semiautomatic pistols, pump-action shotguns Picture: ROLAND LEON and assault rifles following warnings that rival fans are planning flashpoints.
Russian fans, who boast some of the world’s most violent hoodlums like Moscow’s dreaded Spartak Gladiators firm, have vowed to cause carnage among England counterparts.
Meanwhile police face the additional challenge of protecting fan zones from terrorist attacks after ISIS threatened to unleash a bombing campaign.
French experts are also monitoring the movements of known troublemakers from other countries which have not qualified, such as Holland.
It is feared they will come to France even though they have no teams to support – just to attack other fans.
Mr Boutonnet said security was a “co-production” involving many different police and civilian agencies all working in close co-operation.