'Nothing is excluded in principle,' said French President Emmmanuel Macron after talks on Monday with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte when asked about the possibility of sending jets to Kyiv as it battles Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
French aerospace group Dassault Aviation, designer and maker of the Rafale multi-role fighter plane and the Falcon business jet, has instructed its staff on how to respond to, and notably how to avoid directly answering, prickly questions over its weapons exports to "dictatorships" and its sales of private jets for carbon-rich travel by the wealthy few. Justine Brabant and Mickaël Correia reveal here the group’s bullet-point internal documents on how to evade the issues, and detail the hypocrisy of its PR campaign.
In this second of a three-part series of investigations into the controversial sale by France to India of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft, Mediapart details how the then head of the French public prosecution services’ financial crimes branch, Éliane Houlette, shelved investigations into evidence of corruption behind the deal, despite the contrary opinion of her colleagues. France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron, and his predecessor, François Hollande, are cited in the allegations levelled in the case. Houlette has since justified her decision as preserving “the interests of France, the workings of institutions”. Yann Philippin reports.
In contrast to other EU and Nato allies, France has strongly backed Greece in its burgeoning showdown with Turkey over hydrocarbon resources and naval influence in the waters off their coasts.
The first five of 36 Rafale fighter jets ordered by India from French constructor Dassault have left France for the Asian sub-continent, accompanied by a French plane carrying 70 respirators, 100,000 test kits and 10 military health professionals to help Indian efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
