From June 12 to 22, 2022, at the invitation of the Government of Seychelles, a training session on the management of anti-terrorist operations was conducted with the assistance of the yeartenne of the GIGN (national Gendarmerie intervention group) of Reunion. The aim of this training was to prepare the national police and armed forces to intervene in the event of a terrorist attack carried out on a hotel in the archipelago.

This training need had been identified following a mission from the Security and Defense Cooperation Department of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

For a week, the three GIGN officers provided training in tactical planning for an anti-terrorist assault, techniques for neutralizing attackers and protecting hostages. Shooting and distance shooting training sessions were organized at the TAZAR force camp, with the support of an officer from the armed forces of the southern Indian Ocean zone (FAZSOI). A total of 16 soldiers from the Seychelles Defense Forces and 6 officers from the Seychelles Police have benefited from this training.

At the end of this training and these exercises, a tactical exercise was conducted on a hotel island, around a scenario imagining a terrorist attack in a hotel with mass killings and hostage taking, for example of what had happened in Taba in 2004 then in Sharm el-Sheikh in 2005 in Egypt too. This simulation involved the rapid projection of forces to the scene of intervention by sea, an outdoor and indoor progression on a large hotel complex, the location and neutralization of terrorists and the securing and evacuation of hostages.

The outcome of this training, which ended with the simulation of an attack, is considered positive, in the opinion of the trainers who appreciated the individual investment of the Seychelles intervention forces and who noted a real awareness of the executives of the hotel chosen for the exercise in emergency reactions to the terrorist risk.

The Minister of Home Affairs of Seychelles and the Chief of Defense Force, Brigadier Michael Rosette participated in the debriefing session and preparation for the tactical exercise. They were accompanied by the Police Commissioner, Ted Barbé, and his deputy, Ron Bonnelame as well as Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Hollanda and Major Alain Pierre for the SDF party. Everyone was able to take note of the many avenues of cooperation for training and equipment in the fight against terrorism that the GIGN and the FAZSOI have been able to identify. Minister Errol Fonseca reiterated his ambition to create a rapid intervention response unit within the police which can, if necessary, deal with terrorist threats.

For his part, the Ambassador of France, Dominique Mas, said he was satisfied with this first cooperation in the field of anti-terrorism and the determination of the Seychelles authorities to prevent all threats. “There is no country today that can imagine itself safe from a terrorist attack or an act of unhinged person, the last few weeks have tragically demonstrated this reality. The presence, in Mozambique or elsewhere on African soil, of terrorist cells should encourage us to prepare. If today, no threat of this type hangs over the Seychelles, it is important to prepare to make more difficult any attempt to export terror to these paradise islands”,

The National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) is an elite unit of the French National Gendarmerie, specializing in crisis management and dangerous missions requiring specific know-how, particularly in the following three areas: intervention (counter-terrorism, release of hostages, retrenchment of madmen and high-risk arrests in the fight against organized crime); observation-research (surveillance, collection of information and evidence on dangerous individuals in the fight against terrorism and organized crime); the protection of people (for example certain ambassadors) and/or sites particularly threatened. The unit also provides numerous training courses in these fields, in France and abroad.

The GIGN is made up of a central formation established in Satory in the Paris region and fourteen local branches distributed in mainland France and overseas (including that of Reunion). It has intervened in all of the attacks committed in France, regularly contributes to thwarting threats on French territory and has also successfully participated in the evacuations of certain French embassies or of French nationals in various countries in crisis. This year it celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.

Source: Seychelles Nation