Hi,

I was spotting this afternoon in Marseilles' airport, behind the fences of course, when someone stopped by to tell me to leave. He was inside the perimeter of the airport, driving a car El Al, but he didn't seem to be a security agent.

I understand the problems that face Israel at the moment, and that the security around their planes has always been tight. But I guess if he didn't want me to spot the B737 of El Al, he would have left me spotting the other planes...

Well, the weird thing is that he told me that I could spot somewhere else, (because there is two main spotting places in Marseilles, one at the end of runway 32R, and the other (where I was today) along the runway 14R/32L)

I could have easily take a good shot of this plane at the other spotting place anyway...

He also told me about the "vigipirate plan" which states that the country is on a relatively high security alert (no surprises here) and that I needed an authorisation by the airport to spot, something that never occured to me in Marseilles (there is a procedure in this way around Paris CDG going on for a while now, but I wasn't aware of that in Marseilles).

1) Is there really the need of authorisation taking into account that I was not interferring with the operations, that I was behind the fences and above all that I was on a public path?

2) If this happen again, am I right to ask him his Security Agent ID, and that I want him to show me a paper saying that it is forbidden to take pictures at this particular point (as it seem alright at the second spotting place)?

3) What are the risks considering that it is impossible to find a text stating the status of photgraphy around Marseilles airport.

4) Final question, who is specificly authoried to tell me that I must leave my spotting place?

thanks a lot for your help, I guess my questions only concern French spotters but I will appreciate any kind of info/help