Bomb threats hit schools in Italy and France as Macron says too soon to blame foreign powers

Published on 12 November 2026 - 13:15 GMT+1•Updated 13:40 A fresh wave of emailed bomb threats reached head teachers at several schools in Italy on Thursday morning, prompting some to evacuate while authorities carried out checks at others. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The messages were signed “Mikhail Andropov”, the same name that appeared on emails received on Wednesday by 6,300 Italian schools. Hundreds of those schools chose to evacuate pupils and staff. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called government representatives and opposition leaders to Palazzo Chigi, her office in Rome, on Thursday morning to discuss the emergency. At the meeting, Meloni reportedly asked all political parties to show unity. She also promised that Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi would urgently brief parliament. The government said the Interministerial Committee for the Security of the Republic (CISR) would meet in the afternoon to agree a common protocol for handling such threats. Under the proposed protocol, schools should not be evacuated if the only sign of danger is a mass email. Prefects, who represent the central government in each province, would still be able to order an evacuation where there are specific and concrete risks. “The discussion is welcome but it must continue in the appropriate venues, which are parliament and Copasir,” said Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), after the meeting. Copasir is the parliamentary committee that oversees Italy’s intelligence services. “As the opposition, we are fully willing to cooperate in the face of threats aimed at destabilising the country and creating alarm, but we will not give the government a blank cheque on the decisions it takes. Today we did not receive any specific proposals,” she added. Threats spread to France Several schools in France were also evacuated on Thursday after bomb threats, according to local media. This came a day after schools in several European countries, including Italy, received similar threats. France’s education ministry confirmed to Le Parisien that there had been “two” bomb threats on Thursday. It ruled out any “mass-scale phenomenon”. In the southern French city of Marseille, Don Bosco high school was evacuated at around 9am, La Provence reported. Shortly after noon, the newspaper said police and a bomb disposal team were at the school with an explosives detection dog. In Morez, a town in the Jura mountains in eastern France, Victor-Bérard high school was evacuated after it received what the school’s administration called a “disturbing message” by email, La Voix du Jura reported. A nearby middle school was also evacuated, and bomb disposal teams were called in. In Laon, in northern France, the town’s university institute of technology was evacuated on Thursday morning “due to a bomb threat”, L’Union reported. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday it was too soon to say whether “foreign powers” were behind the recent wave of hoax bomb threats across Europe, which has also targeted flights. “As I speak, we do not have sufficient elements to be able to make an attribution,” Macron told reporters at a meeting of European leaders in Dublin, Ireland. “We cannot say if foreign powers are behind these calls.”