Saudi soldiers trained in French camp, Amnesty investigation reveals

September 2019, after a Saudi-led coalition air raid on a Houthi detention center in Dhamar, Yemen. REUTERS / Mohamed al-Sayaghi

Text by: RFI Follow

It is a new scandal in military cooperation with Saudi Arabia. According to an investigation published by Amnesty International, a training ground has been built on French soil to train Saudi soldiers. France had already been singled out in 2019 for the sale of war material to Saudi Arabia, which is currently fighting in Yemen. This time, it is the establishment of a training center in the handling of arms of a Belgian company in the Meuse.

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The center in question is located in Commercy, in the Meuse in the east of France. “  Commercy, commune of the Meuse with 6,000 inhabitants. His madeleines, his Stanislas castle, his Saudi soldiers  ", this is how the investigation of Audrey Lebel, journalist for La Chronique, the magazine of Amnesty International , begins .

What I found there was a training center that had been set up specially for Saudi soldiers, to train them in the handling of weapons of war, the old version of which is used in Yemen ," explains t she to Oriane Verdier , from the RFI international service. This center was established in the Meuse thanks to the former Minister of Defense Gérard Longuet . A member of the government of François Fillon in 2011-2012, he is currently a senator for the Meuse. Gérard Longuet has  " according to his own words, continues Audrey Lebel, " connected "the CEO of the Belgian company John Cockerill to the Chief of the Land Staff at the time ".

Public money

The training center " was established thanks to Gérard Longuet, who clears himself of any conflict of interest, with public money (State, regional authority) ..."

Always disturbing to see the mixtures of genres. Gérard Longuet, former Minister of Defense, senator ... and administrator of Cockerill where he received 25,000 euros / year for eight years.
So, whose interests is he defending? Are all really compatible? pic.twitter.com/6nUeIfBsQP

  Romain Mielcarek (@romainmielcarek) July 2, 2020

“  I did not know that it was possible that France could train soldiers on its territory. Even fewer soldiers who are part of an army engaged in a war that has been raging for more than five years, which has left more than 200,000 dead and which the United Nations describes as "the worst humanitarian disaster in the world". We always tend to think that Yemen is far away, that we are not really concerned as French citizens, except that there, it happens on our territory and with taxpayers' money.  "

Read also: In Yemen, thousands of children on the brink of famine, alerts UNICEF

The war in Yemen

Audrey Lebel recalls the revelations of the online investigation magazine Disclose last year on the use of French weapons in Yemen.According to an investigation published in April 2019 , documents classified as “  Confidential Defense-Special France  ” transmitted to Emmanuel Macron, but also to the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, attested to the presence of French weapons in Yemen. However, France has always denied the use of this French military equipment against civilians in this country.

" It is all the more crazy that the French government continues to turn a deaf ear and to maintain that it controls this trade extremely well, while it is still so opaque, that it is always as difficult to investigate and we don't really know what's going on in our territory. "

Moreover, underlines Audrey Lebel, “  what is all the more cloudy is that we do not know if the Saudis are currently in place or not. Off, I am told that there are some, that there are even some who would have been trapped there during the whole Covid crisis. But officially, even local elected officials say they do not know if the training has really started in Commercy.  "

Audrey Lebel's investigation can be read here

► Also listen: My country sells weapons , interview with Anne Poiret 

Our @LebelAudrey investigated for months on a training center created especially in France for Saudi soldiers in order to train them in the use of the latest version of weapons already used in # Yemen 💣https: //t.co/512AgiCy5S

  Les Journalopes (@LesJournalopes) July 2, 2020

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