France to test PNR system

Paris, May 21

France will test an EU-wide passenger data sharing system to help detect jihadists at two of its busiest airports later this month, a senior interior ministry official said today.

The Passenger Name Record (PNR) system, approved by the European Parliament in April, will be tested at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and that of southeastern Nice before the tests are extended to all French airports, the official said. The system should be ‘fully operational’ by year-end, though EU countries were given two years to turn it into national law.