Groups denounce France’s military sales to Egypt

PARIS: Human right groups alleged in a report that the French government and several private companies have supplied military and surveillance equipment that the Egyptian government uses to silence its citizens.

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and three other groups called for an immediate end to the sales and for a parliamentary inquiry in France.

They alleged in the report that the French products “have helped establish” a system of surveillance and control “that is being used to eradicate all forms of dissent and citizen action”.

France has sold warships, fighter jets, armoured vehicles, missiles and surveillance technologies to Egypt in recent years.

The Egyptian government has fiercely cracked down on dissent since the military overthrow of an elected and divisive president in 2013.

Thousands of extremists have been arrested along with secular pro-democracy activists, many of whom are now in prison.

General-turned-President AbdelFattah el-Sissi was elected to a second term in March.

The French government has argued that security and military cooperation with Egypt is needed to fight the extremist groups that encourage acts of terrorism and to prevent further destabilisation of the region.

In 2010, deliveries of French

€

weapons were worth 39.6mil. The

€

value of the sales surged to 1.2bil

€

in 2015 and 1.3bil in 2016, accord- ing to French parliament reports.

Human rights groups have denounced an alleged lack of transparency surrounding how France monitors exported arms and surveillance equipment.

“France is helping to crush the (Arab Spring) generation through the establishment of an Orwellian surveillance and control system aimed at nipping in the bud any expression of protest,” the director of Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Bahey Eldin Hassan, said in a statement.