A discreet crash interrupts the tour: on October 4, 2025, in Dordogne, a package explodes in transit, two others are defused in Saint-Aulaye. Addressed to Manuel Bompard, Élodie Poux, and Estelle Denis, these low-power shipments, sent from La Roche-Chalais, cause no injuries. Périgueux Prosecutor’s Office and Bordeaux Research Section are investigating; PNAT not involved. Motive still unclear, with intimidation in focus.
What we know, hour by hour
At midday on October 4, 2025, a first package detonated during its delivery in Dordogne, without causing any casualties. In the afternoon, two other packages, identified in a La Poste office in Saint-Aulaye (area of La Roche-Chalais), were neutralized by the Bordeaux bomb disposal team, urgently called by the Dordogne gendarmerie. The three shipments were addressed to public figures: Manuel Bompard, Élodie Poux, and Estelle Denis. The recipients were notified. Fortunately, no injuries were reported after this event. However, the weak shockwave mainly raised a cloud of questions.
According to information gathered from investigators, the discovered devices consisted of a small detonator. This information was confirmed by the Périgueux prosecutor’s office. Additionally, they included a low-power charge. Not deadly, yes; injurious, yes, in case of careless opening. A close source describes it as "more of a bad joke than an attack", caution is advised: the Bordeaux Research Section has been tasked with identifying the sender and reconstructing the postal route. One of the packages targeted the National Assembly through a contact address. This contributed to the speed of the checks.
The next day, October 5, and then October 6, 2025, came the public confirmations and reactions. Élodie Poux, more accustomed to stages than police reports, chose irony on her networks. Manuel Bompard indicated he had already received threats and maintained a methodical trust in the investigation. As for Estelle Denis, a familiar figure of midday broadcasts, she let her teams remind the guidelines. This concerns threatening letters and booby-trapped packages.
An alert born from a professional gesture
Initially, it was just an ordinary package, the exact image of postal banality. This nourishes the country daily with goods and correspondence. A postman notices an anomaly during delivery; a detonation occurs, without injury, but with enough noise to trigger the standard procedure. Perimeter cut-off, securing, call to the bomb disposal experts. Then, the same protocol applies at the local office, where two other packages are quickly identified. They are then isolated, and defused under technical control.
In these actions, nothing spectacular: it’s the ordinary of prevention, those long minutes where every step counts and where routine becomes discipline. The gendarmes, supported by investigation technicians and the bomb disposal service, took their time. In these cases, time, precisely, protects. It saves from the reflex to open, approach, or handle.
Three well-known names, three registers of notoriety
The booby-trapped mail has an address. It speaks as much to those who receive it as to those who send it. Here, three public trajectories.
Manuel Bompard, deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône and figure of La France insoumise, lives in Marseille and sits in Paris; he says he regularly receives threats and, in this case, simply wishes for a quick identification of the author.
Élodie Poux, comedian, chose, true to her style, to dodge with humor. She informed her followers that intimidation would not dictate her stage schedule. The tone is not boastful, but simply offbeat, as a way to remove the fear factor from the anonymous act. This approach aims to reduce the impact sought by this gesture.
Estelle Denis, journalist-presenter of RMC, let the security professionals and La Poste speak, whose guidelines are known: never open an unexpected package, notify and wait for intervention.
These three names form a triptych of notoriety: politics, entertainment, media. A sample of visibility that, more than the link between them, suggests the sender’s view on the public sphere.
A chronological thread without emphasis
On October 4, 2025, the shock. At midday, the alert. In the afternoon, the defusings. In the evening, the investigation opens, under the authority of the Périgueux prosecutor’s office. On the 5th and 6th, the time for reactions and the first follow-up articles. It’s a quick chronicle that unfolds, both local and national: La Roche-Chalais mentioned for shipment, Saint-Aulaye for intervention, Paris on the administrative horizon, Bordeaux for bomb disposal. A geographical anchor placed on the map, without exaggeration.
The PNAT has not deemed it necessary to take up the case at this stage. Local jurisdiction, therefore; national vigilance, however, because booby-trapped packages feed on imitation effects. Investigators know: the slightest material detail can trace back to a printing house, a tape, a purchase circuit.
Technique: a low-power device
The seized packages contained, according to initial findings, a small detonator and a reduced charge. This charge was designed to snap, burst, and injure at best by projection, but not kill. Intimidation is the message, the impact more audible than destructive. In jargon, it’s called a low-power device. The specialists from Bordeaux, called to Saint-Aulaye, work in layers: X-ray, removal, neutralization. Then, samples; the technical police search for powder, paste, fiber that tells of a workshop, a habit, a repetition.
The postal tracings already occupy the teams: origin counter, postage time, cameras nearby, route between La Roche-Chalais and the Saint-Aulaye office, plus the flows that should have led to the recipients or the Assembly. Each code, each stamp, each number becomes a beacon.
Measured reactions, contained tension
Élodie Poux responded with a pirouette, as one defuses with words. The line, sharp and clear, cuts short the dramatization that the sender might have hoped for. Manuel Bompard, on the other hand, reminded that he has already filed reports for threats. When he speaks again, it is not to accuse. However, he asks that the investigation be allowed to conclude. Estelle Denis sticks to the essentials: zero injuries, procedure followed, caution.
In the media ecosystem, the case remains soberly treated. The temptation of grand words is avoided. Indeed, there is no attack, no terrorism at this stage. However, it is an act of intimidation targeting known figures without aiming for mass fear. Measure protects the debate.
The balance between gravity and banality
The banality of the booby-trapped package is the paradox of these cases. An ordinary box, some tape, a label: everything is common, except for the intention. The postman who passes from box to box, as well as the counter that stamps, illustrate postal activity. Moreover, the carts that roll participate in this dynamic. However, suddenly, the flaw and the noise occur. This gravity that crosses the logistics chain, ordinary by nature, highlights a vulnerability that we forget in calm times.
In Dordogne, the horizon is rural, the pace slow. Saint-Aulaye, La Roche-Chalais: gentle names where one first recognizes a river, a bridge, a market. The jolt is all the more sensitive. But we also find what works: the alert, the coordination, the technical mastery. A chain breaks when another, institutional, strengthens.
Risks of interpretation and lexical caution
In these hours, there are two traps: exaggerate and minimize. Exaggerate, to dress with broad words a circumscribed reality. Minimize, to mock what could have injured. The balance is in precision: three packages, low detonation, no injuries, defusing, prosecutor involved, PNAT at a distance, investigation ongoing. Everything else is speculation.
The question of motive remains open. Bad joke? Targeted resentment? Search for publicity? The investigation will decide. For now, the light hypothesis dominates, without certainty. Prosecutors like facts and evidence, not hunches; it is up to them to have the final word, sober.
Notorieties and exposure: quick context
The name Manuel Bompard has been circulating in French political news for years. That of Estelle Denis follows the rhythms of midday radio and television. Élodie Poux maps, from tour to tour, a cartography of laughter. This diversity of profiles tends to dismiss the idea of a single ideological target. It more likely indicates an obsession with visibility, a desire to reach known names through the detour of mail.
The repetition of this type of case elsewhere in Europe has sometimes inspired imitation. Nothing, here, allows for a hasty comparison. Dordogne is not Geneva, and the typology of the devices is different. Indeed, it differs from more sophisticated cases. These have fed the international chronicle. Staying local, looking precise, that is the way.
Investigation: the patience of procedures
The Périgueux prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation entrusted to the Bordeaux Research Section. The piles of images surrounding counters and axes will be scrutinized. The envelopes, wiring, powders, and adhesives might speak. The recipients have already provided what they know: messages received, previous letters, threats recorded for one, publications noted for another, reception habits for the third. From there, a pattern emerges.
The judicial organization has its rhythm: observations, sampling, analyses, exploitation of postal data, interviews. The bomb disposal experts write their report; the police turn every stone. The sender’s phone, if they have one, has left traces. The paper leaves traces too; the glue, ink, fibers almost never lie. It’s a matter of details, which means patience.
What the authorities remind us
The law enforcement and La Poste remind us of simple actions that have proven effective here. A suspicious or unexpected package, without a clear sender, with suspicious packaging, must remain closed. One must move away, alert, wait. The intervention services are trained to assess and defuse. These are professions of caution more than bravery.
After the alert, a vigilant calm
The country sometimes wakes up with old fears; they pass through the mail as they did through letters of the past. In Dordogne, this October weekend will have reminded us of the solidity of protocols and, above all, the luck of avoided injuries. Public destinies resume their pace. The investigators, meanwhile, delve into the gray matter of the case: schedules, stamps, silences.
The news loves the spotlight; the rule of law, however, prefers the invisible. It is this that will close, perhaps quickly, perhaps later, this file where three known names have been, for now, just addresses. And we will stick, as close as possible to the facts: three packages, low detonation, no injuries. The rest belongs to the investigation.