A French gendarme was injured Saint-Aoustrille near Issoudun at 01:30 on early Sunday morning, when he and his colleagues intercepted an alleged attempt to steal copper in the area of the French shortwave transmission site there. The suspects intentionally drove into the gencarmerie car. The injured officer’s colleagues then found one man in the car of the suspects and arrested him. Other suspects are reprtedly at large.

Copper theft has happened at transmission sites before, and the Issoudun suspects may have been inspired by an apparently similarly motivated theft at the KITX Radio Tower in Oklahoma, on January 15, with spectacular consequences for the transmission site itself in that case.