French anti-terrorist police are hunting a “guerrilla” organisation that is blowing up speed cameras and demanding a ransom from the State.

Police are taking seriously claims from the Nationalist Revolutionary Army Faction (FNAR) that it is responsible for the destruction of six radar installations on roads in the Paris region over the past six months.

The latest attempted attack was on Tuesday on a motorway close to the village of Baillet-en-France, 20 miles north of the capital. The device, consisting of a bundle of explosive and a timer, did not detonate. It was spotted by a road maintenance team and defused after police closed the motorway for five hours.

The FNAR, which also calls itself the National Anti-Radar Front, is reported to be demanding a significant sum of money to halt the attacks, as well as tax cuts and less rigorous enforcement of the law on the roads.

The group sent its demands to the Interior Ministry in October. Worded in the grandiose jargon of 1970s revolutionary groups, it complained about the oppression of “the owner State which robs its citizens”. The police said they did not know if they were dealing with one person or a group, “but either way, this is dangerous stuff”.

Dozens of France’s 1,100 roadside speed cameras have been destroyed or vandalised since they were introduced in 2003 – later than in most neighbouring countries. The devices have contributed to a sharp drop in road deaths, but many drivers still consider their presence “unFrench” and a breach of their civil rights.

Many believe they were created to fill the state coffers with tens of millions of euros in fines a year. Many motorists rejoiced last month when officials reported that speed readings could be exaggerated if the cameras in the steel-encased units were slightly misaligned with the road. The Government said that the report was wrong.

Road safety campaigners deplored the violent attacks on the cameras, which were installed after the former President, Jacques Chirac, decided to get tough on France’s high death toll on the roads. “The speed cameras are more than symbolic,” said Chantal Perrichon, president of the League Against Highway Violence. “Thanks to them, we have saved so many lives.”

Police said that the attacks, which were carried out with primitive homemade explosives connected to a timer and which appear to be linked, represented a threat to passing drivers.

The gang is being compared to a mysterious group that planted bombs on railway tracks in 2003 and demanded a €10 million (£7.2 million) ransom. The authorities made two unsuccessful attempts to pay the ransom, including a delivery by a helicopter that failed to find a rendezvous point designated by the group.

The organisation was never traced and disappeared after announcing in 2004 that it was temporarily suspending its campaign while it improved its methods. Police said that the railway group appeared to be more professional than the speed camera saboteurs, but did not rule out a possible link between the campaigns.

President Sarkozy, who was the Interior Minister at the time of the railway campaign, has ordered police to crack down hard on the vandalism of speed cameras, which each cost thousands of euros to install. Attacks on them are not amusing and are an afront to the authority of the state, he said.

Speed cameras per 1,000 sq km

Ireland 0.3
Germany 0.7
France 2
Italy 7.2
Switzerland 16.1
UK 20.9
Netherlands 37.3

Source: European Speed Camera Database

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