Recently, confidential documents of France's DRM military intelligence agency have been leaked to the press and gone viral. They contain information regarding arms sales contract from Paris to Riyadh during the years 2010 to 2019. These documents show the list of advanced weapons sold by Paris to the Saudi and Emirati regimes knowing that they are being used against Yemeni civilians.
The document titled “Yemen: emergency state” was sent to the French Emanuel Macron, the Prime Minister Eduard Philippe and French secretaries of defense and foreign affairs in September 25, 2015 indicating the direct and indirect participation of France in the Saudi-led war against the Yemeni people which is considered as France’s complicity in war crimes against Yemeni civilians.
Despite of being aware of thousands of Yemenis being killed by the Saudi and Emirati regimes and displacement of millions of civilians who deal with famine, diseases and poverty, the French government, on the one hand poses an anti-war gesture in front of cameras and on the other hand clearly violates the international law namely “Prohibition of arms sales to states who violate humanitarian law or commit war crimes”, and by completing previous military agreements and signing new ones has practically become one of the biggest western arms suppliers to the Saudi regime.
Last month, following the release of the mentioned document, the French domestic intelligence agency and the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) summoned eight French journalists including Livolsi, Mathias Destal of the investigative news site Disclose and France Inter’s Benoît Collombat who were later sentenced to five years in prison and paying a financial penalty of 75,000 Euros.