IR holders: Would you ever go back to VFR-only and, if so, what would change?

Thanks @Timothy – also my (limited) experience from flying VFR in France.

Peter wrote:

Fines need to be backed up by law – at least in the UK.

Well… you know. France is not the UK, so maybe practice is different around here.

Aviathor wrote:

From the news articles, it seems like what they fear the most is someone taking photographs of the plant.

Airborne_Again wrote:

And you can’t do that from 3800 ft…?

You can do that from 2500 ft. ! Take a look at the LFBA ILS 29 approach chart which takes you right over the plant. Legally, I mean !

Certainly not. It’s clearly stated both in the French constitution and in the ECHR.
And it’s even, although it would otherwise be implicit, stated in the French penal code

I always fly straight lines in France too.

Regarding prosecutions, for me also lots sound like FUD. In my earlier PPL days due to a lot of cheese holes aligning, I bust Orly’s CTR pretty badly. (From what I understood they had to cancel more than one approach). They told me upon landing a trip toussus (at the time I was not in radio contact). Never had any sort of prosecution or follow up BUT after landing I immediately went to the tower at toussus to call Orly and apologise. They even said there had to be a follow up (“automatic”) but it’s been 6 years and I still haven’t heard anything.

I am not a lawyer, but after some digging I found that Article 413-5 of the French penal code is the one that applies. It calls for 15.000 € fine and 1 year in prison. Nuclear powerplants are now (since 2015 or thereabout) assimilated with military installations. Stricter sanctions apply if the act was committed by a group, if the act caused damage or if weapons were used in the process. In such cases the sanction may be 100.000 € and 7 years in prison.

This report from a French parliamentary commission concerning the need to strengthen the legal response to repeated intrusions into French nuclear plants by various organisations including Greenpeace, is interesting reading.

Based on reading various news articles on nuclear P-area busts (not to be confused with what the French call ZIT which are temporary as opposed to the premanent P-areas), the response is usually a slap on the wrist (“Rappel à la loi”) or a small fine, after having established that the bust was due to an honest mistake, not intentional, and that no pictures of the site were taken. I suppose this also supposes that the PIC was cooperative with the investigators and did not do stupid things like turning off the transponder to attempt escaping.

It is too easy to quote maximum fines and prison terms. I know nothing about the French criminal justice system, but I have had a lot of experience in the English one for the last 20 years.

In England and Wales (Scotland and NI are different, as are Man and the CI), a fine with a maximum of £5000 is unlikely to result in more than a week’s taxable income. So, if you earn £40k, taking home £30k, pleading guilty on a first offence, the fine would be about £600, with a surcharge of £60 plus costs which would be £85 from the CPS and a little more from the CAA.

If the fine is unlimited, as it is in a few cases, the result is the same, except for extremely high earners (more than £475k gross) where weekly net income exceeds £5000.

For fines that carry lower maximums you are looking at ⅓ to ⅔ of the above figures.

And, in the UK, you are very unlikely to be sent to prison on a first offence, unless your plan involved actually deliberately crashing into the nuclear reactor or crowds.

And all the above should be caveated with the fact that any kind of prosecution for infringement is extremely rare (the current run rate is 0.3% of infringements result in prosecution), and only in very serious cases.

Timothy wrote:

It is too easy to quote maximum fines and prison terms.

Well, Peter wanted a legal reference…

But again all I read about got away with a slap on the wrist or, in one case, a 500 € fine (but in the latter case there was a trial)

Timothy wrote:

And, in the UK, you are very unlikely to be sent to prison on a first offence, unless your plan involved actually deliberately crashing into the nuclear reactor or crowds.

And all the above should be caveated with the fact that any kind of prosecution for infringement is extremely rare (the current run rate is 0.3% of infringements result in prosecution), and only in very serious cases.

It seems to be the same here. So France is a state of law afterall.