Several high-ranking French army officers tried on suspicion of corruption and favouritism

The military are suspected, to varying degrees, of having favored a company in the 2010s in the awarding of several logistics contracts for external operations of the French army.

Three general officers, six senior officers and two executives of an air freight transport company will be appearing before the 32nd chamber of the Paris Criminal Court from Monday 9 September until the 25th, on suspicion of favouritism in the awarding of public contracts. Corruption, illegal taking of interest, abuse of corporate assets and even violation of professional secrecy, the entire system of military air transport seems to have been gangrenous at a certain time.

And this is no coincidence because the period in question corresponds to the one in which the French armies do not yet have transport aircraft such as the Airbus A 400M. For the heaviest operations, such as the deployment in Afghanistan in the 2000s, the armed forces use private transport companies. They are capable of loading heavy equipment or freight in quantity, mainly with Soviet aircraft, such as the Ilyushin Il-76 or the Antonov An-124. The latter is capable of carrying nearly 100 tons of payload.

Everyone – except the US Army, which has heavy transport aircraft – did this. Ilyushins and Antonovs carried UN cargo when peacekeepers were deployed; NATO also used these aircraft, mainly those countries that also do not have heavy military transport aircraft, which was almost all of them, and this was the case since the 1990s.

In France, a small company from the Paris region, International Chartering Systems (ICS), acts as an intermediary, responding to calls for tender from the Ministry of the Armed Forces by providing aircraft from Ukrainian or Russian companies (the latter often closely linked to the Russian Air Force) for freight or equipment transport missions. Between 2011 and 2015, ICS thus contracted for 175 million euros with the Ministry of the Armed Forces for the transport of troops and equipment according to an estimate by the Court of Auditors.

It is around this company and its relations with the military awarding these contracts that all these suspicions of corruption revolve. ICS is almost systematically chosen, sometimes even passing in front of the Salis company mandated by NATO and from which the French army had pre-purchased hundreds of hours of transport flights, causing significant additional costs – up to 16 million euros, specifies the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF). In their defense, the military argues the absolute necessity of having a more flexible, more responsive and more agile service provider at their disposal, while external operations are multiplying at this time in Mali, Central Africa or Iraq and Syria against Daesh.

Moreover, in its opinion submitted to the PNF, the Ministry of the Armed Forces asks to take into consideration the pressure that weighed on their respective services at that time, noting that apart from Colonel Philippe Rives, at the time Chief of Staff of the Operations and Routing Support Center (CSOA), none of the other soldiers involved personally benefited from the facts observed, in particular favouritism. On the other hand, the most serious accusations are based on Colonel Rives, in particular passive corruption and illegal taking of interest; after having tried and often succeeded in favouring ICS for two years, Colonel Rives was hired by the ICS company as deputy director. At the time, the military ethics commission, which was asked to consider this express reconversion, found nothing wrong with it.