Italy Moves to Stop Evacuating Schools Over Mass Emails as New Andropov Threats Hit Italy and France

Since Wednesday's emails reached about 6,300 Italian schools and forced more than 300 evacuations, the hoaxes have not stopped. Another round of messages landed in school inboxes across Italy on Thursday morning, Nov. 12, prompting some head teachers to clear buildings while authorities checked others.

The new emails carry the same signature as Wednesday's: "Mikhail Andropov," styled as leader of the "Vilayat of Misoginistan." Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had warned on Wednesday that "it's possible that messages such as these will arrive again."

Rome wants a rule against evacuating on a mass email

Meloni convened government representatives and opposition leaders at Palazzo Chigi on Thursday morning and asked all parties for unity. She also said Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi would urgently brief parliament.

The government said the Interministerial Committee for the Security of the Republic (CISR) would meet Thursday afternoon to agree a common protocol for handling such threats.

Under the proposal, a school would not be evacuated if the only sign of danger is a mass email. Prefects, the central government's representatives in each province, could still order an evacuation where there is a specific, concrete risk.

The reasoning is simple. Wednesday's email went to roughly 6,300 schools, and Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara counted 312 affected. He said "the concrete risk is practically non-existent" and that the sheer number of recipients showed the threat's "low credibility." Meloni said no element had emerged suggesting a concrete danger.

No explosives or suspicious devices have been reported at any school.

The opposition wants it done in parliament

The centre-left is not signing off yet. "The discussion is welcome but it must continue in the appropriate venues, which are parliament and Copasir," Schlein said after the meeting. Copasir is the parliamentary committee that oversees Italy's intelligence services.

"As the opposition, we are fully willing to cooperate in the face of threats aimed at destabilising the country and creating alarm, but we will not give the government a blank cheque on the decisions it takes. Today we did not receive any specific proposals," she said.

Third wave in a month, and now France

Wednesday's emails were the third wave against Italian schools in a month. Earlier messages arrived on Oct. 19 and Nov. 2, when about 280 schools were hit, according to Italian media.

On Thursday the threats crossed another border. France's education ministry told Le Parisien there had been two bomb threats that day and ruled out any "mass-scale phenomenon." Local press reported that Don Bosco high school in Marseille was evacuated around 9 a.m., with police and a bomb disposal team later on site with an explosives detection dog.

Wednesday's version of the email also reached hundreds of schools in Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland police said more than 300 schools there received it, that it came from outside the United Kingdom, and that they were treating it as a hoax. Ireland's Garda called it "not credible" and did not advise any school to evacuate.

Who is behind it

No state or organization has been formally accused of ordering the hoaxes. The same Andropov name was attached to email threats sent last Friday to newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria, and to airport authorities in Rome over two flights hit by the Nov. 5 wave of fake bomb threats that diverted flights across Europe.

Some European officials suspect Russia of running a campaign of disruption against countries backing Ukraine. Moscow denies it and accuses the West of a smear campaign. France summoned Iran's ambassador on Tuesday after accusing Tehran of a cyberattack that disabled refrigerators in hundreds of supermarkets. Iran called the accusation "baseless and hostile." Separately, French officials said blood banks were targeted by cyberattacks.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it is too soon to blame foreign powers for the school threats.

Meloni has urged against speculative finger-pointing. Crosetto offered a wider caution on Wednesday: the threats are "part of a strategy that is quite clear by now: to spread fear and create anxiety," he said, but "it is not always the work of foreign countries or hostile entities. There are also attention-seekers and lunatics."

The summit angle

The emails landed as 48 leaders were invited to the European Political Community meeting in Ireland on Thursday, which is to discuss "securing and defending a democratic Europe." An informal European Council meeting is set for Friday. U.S. and European officials describe a campaign of hybrid attacks by Russia and Iran as set to be front and center in the talks, alongside a possible Ukraine peace deal.

Zelensky arrived in Dublin on Wednesday. Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were reported in Moscow on Thursday to meet Vladimir Putin.

What comes next

The open question is whether CISR adopts the no-evacuation-on-email-alone rule on Thursday afternoon, and whether the opposition accepts it without the parliamentary and Copasir review Schlein is demanding. Tajani, Crosetto and Piantedosi are due to brief parliament. Italy's investigators, including the Postal Police, are still tracing the origin of the emails.