Contacted Areva confirms the absence of its leader

Seven people, including five French, abducted 10 days ago in Niger would be alive. Expected a photo or a video the evidence. They were transferred in the Trimétrine mountains to the northeast of Mali near the Algerian border. And the French Government would be "to engage the contact at any time" with AQIM, Sahelian branch of Al-Qaeda, which claimed the abduction and announced his intention to send the "legitimate demands" to the France.

But in parallel, many questions emerge in procedures of safety in Areva, to understand how such removal could take place. To the point that Areva has decided to launch an audit on its security, assigned to General Quesnot, former Chief of special staff of François Mitterrand. This work focuses on the framework agreement concluded with the authorities of Niger and its implementation, and the internal management of the crisis. An initial analysis will be carried out "more quickly", indicates the group.

One of the issues is the absence of the number one security group, Admiral Thierry of Arbonneau. The latter is returned to his Office that on Monday 20 September afternoon, five days after the events of Arlit, because he married his son, learned from concordant sources.

Call for private companies

His absence at the first meetings of the crisis cell has shocked some participants. According to one of them, he would have "outsourced" the management of the crisis in one of his deputies. In such circumstances, Anne Lauvergeon, the patron saint of Areva, ought to bring back its Director, consider several security professionals. Contacted, Areva confirms the absence of its leader. But, according to a spokesman, the pattern of security "spent his time on the phone." "He was not physically with the crisis, but well this cell".

This episode takes place after a series of third of the way the French champion of the atom manages the security of its employees in the Sahel, new area of choice of radical Islamists. "There is no serious safety device" around, complete of the homes of employees said Idi Ango Omar, a former Minister of the Interior of Niger, shortly after the abduction. According to him, the guards worked for companies belonging to three former leaders of the Tuareg rebellion, which some members have established links with organization. Niamey said then offered the help of his army two months before the taking of hostages, but that Areva had preferred to appeal to private agents. Group reacted immediately by saying no having "never refused" assistance of Niger, while acknowledging "a set of complicity, of failures" at the time of the abduction.

The controversy is mounted a notch when "The world" published a letter to the prefect of Arlit, September 1 to leaders of Areva, making threats of kidnapping in the area. In his letter, the captain Seydou Oumanou claimed to the industrialist of the means to counter the threat.

Regretting the "irrelevant polemics", Areva said that "the authorities of the countries have communicated no specific information" to the Deputy Director of the protection of the people and heritage, General Champenois, at place of 7 to September 14. And that security measures had been strengthened on the spot after Michel Germaneau by AQIM, at the end of July.