After a final turn in the line, the captain of the Air France Boeing 777 cargo ship cut the engines. It was 11:05 p.m. in the cargo area of Roissy Airport on Tuesday. A squad of men in orange or yellow vests invests the tarmac and unlocks the two doors of the holds. During this time, the elevating machines used to tow the pallets are positioned at the exact height of the aircraft, in a perfectly adjusted ballet. The plane contains 47 tonnes of masks, or 16 million units, shipped 14 hours earlier to Shanghai.
All of it will be discharged in seventy minutes flat. Under the wings, a dozen officials from the air transport gendarmerie (GTA), HK G36 assault rifles (and not HK 15 as mentioned by mistake, ed), took up their positions. “Today, masks are secure like ingots”, slips Lieutenant-Colonel Christophe Greneche, who oversees the operation. The precious cargo is headed
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