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Sending Pressure Cookers from France to Tunisia Is Not a Good Idea
FedEx employees were surprised to find what appeared to be pressure cookers and detonators at France's largest airport.
France has been on edge since Islamic State terrorists killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, and pushed the country into an extended state of emergency for the first time since the Algerian War.
So it’s no surprise FedEx workers at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport panicked Thursday when they found pressure cookers and detonators inside a ripped package.
Only after staff members warned authorities of the “imminent dangers,” and French officials arrived on the scene with bomb-sniffing dogs, that they realized the boxes were full of decoys.
Their intended destination? The U.S. Embassy in Tunisia.
As it turns out, this kind of delivery isn’t entirely uncommon, but finding an open package is. Agence France-Presse reported that a security source told the news agency this is “the first time that a package has been opened.”
Still, Frederic Petit, a representative for FedEx employees who are members of the CGT union, disparaged the unmarked transportation of fake pressure cookers as “irresponsible” while France is on regular alert for terrorist attacks.
“Nobody was aware of this cargo,” he said.
Photo Credit: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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