France Orders TRUSTCOMS Anti-Drone Systems After Low-Flying Drone Alerts

In the past few weeks, unidentified small aircraft have been seen above several of France’s most sensitive sites, including nuclear installations and military bases. Paris is therefore racing to address a long-neglected weakness in its defences: the low-altitude airspace where recreational drones, commercial quadcopters and improvised devices can inflict disproportionate harm.

Low-level drones above nuclear and military sites

France’s most recent warning was not prompted by high-flying bombers or hypersonic weapons. Instead, it involved consumer-type drones operating close to the ground, frequently unheard until they are nearly directly above a site.

Defence sources say these aircraft have passed over:

• Mourmelon, a major French Army training area
• A rail convoy carrying Leclerc battle tanks near Mulhouse Nord
• Eurenco’s Bergerac facility, which makes propellants and explosives
• L’Île Longue, home base of France’s nuclear-armed ballistic-missile submarines
• Logistics and intelligence facilities including the Creil-Senlis joint services site

Every incursion has been brief, and none has yet resulted in physical damage. However, viewed together, they resemble somebody checking door handles along a darkened street.

French security officials see a pattern of probing flights, as if an unknown actor was “testing locks” on critical sites rather than striking them.

Responses on the ground have at times appeared improvised, relying on handheld jamming rifles, shotguns and ad-hoc patrols. Such measures are a final resort rather than a lasting protective shield for high-value sites requiring round-the-clock security.

France’s defence establishment has reached a stark assessment: low-altitude airspace has become a strategic blind spot.

Emergency order: two TRUSTCOMS systems to close the gap

On 26 December 2025, the Directorate of Aeronautical Maintenance activated an “operational emergency” procedure to procure two anti-drone systems from the French company TRUSTCOMS. This accelerated mechanism is seldom used, indicating that the military considered the threat too pressing for a lengthy procurement process.

Infodrone: detecting the intruder

The first system, Infodrone, is intended for detection and identification. It makes use of the “remote ID” transmission that most civilian drones in Europe are now required to emit. Functioning like a digital number plate, the signal provides basic identification and location information.

TRUSTCOMS states that Infodrone can identify and locate roughly 95% of commercial drones equipped with this capability. Compact and rapidly deployable, the equipment is suited to:

• Protecting permanent locations, including factories, depots and bases
• Safeguarding temporary high-profile events
• Delivering an immediate initial check of whether a drone is friendly, operated legally or unknown

Infodrone gives commanders something they often lack in drone incidents: near-instant clarity about what is flying, and where it is coming from.

The system neither fires at targets nor produces disruptive signals on its own. Its principal benefit is reducing the interval between “we see something on radar” and “we know whose drone this is and whether it should be here”.

DroneBlocker: disabling hostile aircraft

The second TRUSTCOMS system, DroneBlocker, supplies the forceful element. It jams the radio connections and satellite-navigation signals, known as GNSS, on which drones rely.

After acquiring a target, DroneBlocker can interfere with:

• The pilot’s control connection to the drone
• Telemetry carrying command and data information
• GPS, Galileo and other positioning signals used to direct autonomous flights

The manufacturer says it can neutralise up to 99% of drones within its engagement envelope. Although that result depends on real-world conditions, the intended outcome is straightforward: make the aircraft land, leave it hovering without effective control, or activate a fail-safe return that authorities can observe.

A particularly significant capability is its capacity to differentiate friendly drones from hostile ones. French forces increasingly use their own UAVs for reconnaissance, convoy surveillance and base security. An anti-drone zone that destroyed every aircraft would be impractical. Distinguishing blue drones from red drones is consequently now a central requirement.

DroneBlocker is designed to blind and mute hostile drones while letting authorised military UAVs continue their mission inside the same airspace.

A temporary measure, not a complete solution

Officials emphasise that Infodrone and DroneBlocker do not replace France’s principal long-term counter-UAV programmes. Instead, they provide an interim solution for what one officer called “an immediate, uncomfortable void”.

The objective is to equip commanders with additional options while France builds a more comprehensive national architecture for countering drones, both domestically and during overseas operations.

French planners have also been compelled to adjust their thinking. Technological advantage is no longer determined solely in high-altitude airspace by sophisticated fighters and long-range sensors. It is also contested in the cluttered space between treetops and rooftops, where a £1,000 quadcopter can provoke a security alert at a nuclear base.

A broad anti-drone toolkit

France is not beginning from nothing. Each of the three services already operates, tests or deploys several anti-drone systems.

Service	System	Main role	Typical use
Air and Space Force	MILAD	Detection, tracking and jamming	Protection of air bases and sensitive locations
Air and Space Force	BASSALT	Detection and neutralisation using radar and optics	Major events and base protection
Joint / DGA	HELMA-P	Laser “hard kill” against drones	Short-range physical destruction
Army	PROTEUS	20 mm cannon with smart fire control	Close protection for units and fixed sites
Army	NEROD jammers	Portable neutralisation of commercial drones	Patrols and convoy security
Joint	Infodrone & DroneBlocker	Identification and jamming	Rapid reinforcement at critical sites

Helicopters equipped with electronic-warfare pods may also be assigned to establish temporary “no-drone bubbles” over designated locations.

The principal issue is now not so much the invention of further equipment, but coverage, response speed and coordination. Drones can emerge with almost no warning, follow pre-programmed routes or fly in swarms intended to overload sensors.

Generals warned about drone swarm scenarios

French MPs had been alerted to this risk months before the latest incidents. During parliamentary hearings in the autumn, General Jérôme Bellanger, head of the Air and Space Force, discussed recent exercises in which the military assessed its defences against drone swarms.

His judgement was carefully expressed but unsettling: the results were “perfectible”. Put plainly, a large number of inexpensive, coordinated UAVs can strain or evade existing systems.

Senior officers now speak openly about a future where saturation attacks by expendable drones become as common as artillery barrages once were.

These attacks need not destroy runways or hangars to cause disorder. A concentrated drone wave can require radar operators to examine hundreds of tracks. Security personnel may be sent to several false alerts around a base. Just one device that gets through could record imagery, interrupt communications or release a small payload.

What “remote ID” and jamming actually involve

For those without specialist knowledge, anti-drone warfare terminology can seem unclear. In this French initiative, two of the key concepts are “remote ID” and “jamming”.

Remote ID amounts to digital identification for drones. European rules require most commercial UAVs to broadcast information including their serial number, position, altitude and the operator’s location. Infodrone-type systems receive these broadcasts. If they detect a drone without remote ID, or one transmitting suspicious details, they can identify it as a possible concern well before it reaches the perimeter fence.

Jamming, which is employed by DroneBlocker and comparable systems, overwhelms radio frequencies or navigation bands with powerful interference. When applied effectively, the drone’s receiver can no longer interpret control instructions or satellite information. Military planners must regulate this with care: excessive power or an incorrect frequency could interfere with nearby civilian communications or friendly systems.

How an actual incident might develop

Defence officials regularly model scenarios on paper. One probable case could unfold as follows: in the early evening at a nuclear site, security sensors detect a small, slow-moving object arriving at low altitude. Radar reveals a weak track, while cameras see flashing lights but cannot establish the model.

An Infodrone unit would immediately search for remote ID transmissions. If it identifies a legitimate, registered drone operated by a maintenance contractor on an approved route, the alert can be resolved quickly. If there is no valid signal, or if the data identifies an unauthorised operator beyond the perimeter, the threat assessment increases.

A DroneBlocker station would then be directed towards the track. Operators would jam the intruder’s control link and GNSS signals, compelling it to drift, land or head back along a route under observation. Site teams could subsequently recover the equipment and, if fortunate, trace it to the person who launched it.

This layered sequence - detect, identify and then neutralise - is precisely the response France seeks to standardise before an opportunistic overflight becomes a genuine crisis.