Four employees of RTE will be tried on February 28 in Paris for suspected fraudulent interventions on the electricity network last June and July, which had triggered a complaint from the manager of the electricity transmission network in France, a procedure denounced by the CGT as a “serious infringement of fundamental rights”.
The Paris prosecutor’s office handed over on Friday to these four men aged between 31 and 35, employees of RTE who had been in custody since Tuesday in the premises of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), a summons for a trial before the criminal court in Paris on February 28.
They will be tried for “obstructing the operation of an automated data processing system”, “fraudulent modification” of such a system and “introduction of fraudulent data” in it.
The four employees were interviewed at the DGSI premises because RTE is an operator of vital importance for the functioning of the country.
Pending the hearing, the Paris prosecutor’s office has requested that they be placed under judicial supervision.
RTE had filed a complaint this summer following damage that would have led to power cuts, a source close to the case had indicated.
The investigation was opened on July 29 for obstruction of a data processing system, computer sabotage, fraudulent access to and maintenance of an automated data processing system, as well as the introduction, modification and deletion of data from such a system.
In a note to employees consulted on Wednesday by AFP, the management of RTE does not mention any deterioration but, three times in June and July, a “loss of telecontrol”, that is to say that electrical stations have been made unavailable to be seen and operated remotely, for example to be de-energized, which has “put at significant risk the safety of the electrical system”.
“Every day, dozens of losses of teleconnections occur because of a lack of technical reliability. If there is a +significant risk (…) +, the network is experiencing serious failures daily and not to remedy it is irresponsible,” mocked Friday in a statement the National Federation
mines-energy of the CGT (FNME-CGT).
The central union had announced itself Wednesday morning the placements in custody, before a rally of support Thursday of some 80 agents of RTE in front of the building in the business district of La Defense.
– “Criminalization” –
For the FNME-CGT, this procedure is a “criminalization of the right to strike”: the State puts “the anti-terrorist services at the disposal of RTE to silence the wage claims”.
Last spring, RTE employees went on strike for several months to demand an increase in their salaries, but without success.
“The crushing machine continues,” reacted Francis Casanova, CGT central union delegate for RTE, to AFP, for whom there is a “connivance between RTE and the State at the highest level to terrorize the employees who claim” and a disappearance of the rule of law in favor of a “police state”.
“The DGSI has obviously mobilized colossal resources, dozens of people. Not only are the employees in question bugged, but the union activists are bugged, it’s a crazy thing,” added Mr. Casanova.
According to him, the defendants are “ordinary employees, four maintenance technicians from the North region”.
Lawyer for one of them, placed under judicial supervision with a ban on speaking to his comrades, Mr. Jérôme Karsenti told AFP on Friday that these were “classic and traditional union activist acts” for which the management of RTE “wanted to make an example of them to make
to silence the social debate”.
According to him, “the judicial control shows a total misunderstanding of the case. To prohibit fellow activists, who ensure together and in responsibility their acts, to meet, is a way to continue the repression of the union and militant organization”, he denounced.
Solicited by the AFP, RTE did not wish to make a comment Friday in the beginning of evening.
