Letters received by a school in Chalon-sur-Saône ultimately do not contain traces of plague

A mysterious envelope containing white powder landed in a training center in Saône-et-Loire. Initially positive for the plague, further analyzes actually showed negative.

Very strange letters. Several envelopes from abroad were received by the Colint School training center, a private school of around thirty students specializing in digital professions, in the Sucrerie district of Chalon-sur-Saône, near from Dijon.

White powder was found in one of these envelopes. The prefecture of Saône-et-Loire finally announced Thursday, November 28, that it does not contain traces of plague. “The analyzes carried out during the night are negative“, the prefecture told franceinfo.

According to information from France Bleu Bourgogne, six school employees were in contact with this powder. The firefighters had to intervene with a chemical risk unit to take care of these employees, who were transferred as a precaution to the Chalon-sur-Saône University Hospital, in a radiological, biological and chemical nuclear structure, faced with suspicion of this fatal disease. , the last cases of which observed in France date back to 1945.

The Saône-et-Loire prefecture has activated a monitoring unit to “put in place all precautionary measures and coordinate the action of the various intervention and rescue services“. For the moment, we do not know when these envelopes were received by the training center. Last July, traces of plague were found in a letter addressed to the then Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin The letter did not arrive at its destination: it had been intercepted in a sorting center near Dijon.