Based on several internal documents, the online media “disclose” and the weekly “Télérama” reveal the involvement of three companies in various supervisory services, with the consent of the French state.
Le Monde
Many French companies have provided massive digital monitoring tools with the Egyptian regime, according to an online media survey disclose and from the Télerama magazine . According to the two media, Nexa Technologies, Ercom-Suneris and Dassault Systèmes contracted agreements with Egypt at the end of 2014. Sales asking, while the Egyptian regime is accused of massive violations of the rights of The man: Egypt would have some 60,000 political prisoners, according to NGOs, since the arrival of Marshal Sissi in 2013.
Nexa Technologies and Sister Business – They have the same leaders – Advanced Middle East Systems, based in Dubai, provided a system for monitoring Internet traffic called Cerebro, as part of a contract called Toblerone and signed on 24 March 2014 for more than 11 million euros. In his application for an export license, transmitted in May 2014 to the French Ministry of the Economy and that Disclose and Telerama proved, Nexa mentions a “IP legal interception system in the context of the fight against terrorism and the Crime “.
leaders already indicted
The involvement of these companies in the sale of Egypt of Materials and Surveillance Solutions was already known: their leaders were indicted in June for complicity of acts of torture and enforced disappearances .
A second French company has been recommended in Egyptian power by Nexa Technologies to provide additional benefits: it is Ercom-Suneris, a company Bought by the French defense giant Thales in 2019 . For 15 million euros, it provides the Cairo ways to listen to telephone conversations and geolocate mobile phones.
Finally, to explore the many data collected and link with other databases held by the Egyptian regime, a third company joined the hitch: Dassault Systèmes, a subsidiary of the defense group of the same name specialized in Digital technologies, provided a search engine called Exalead. Its installation was carried out between 2015 and at the end of 2016, according to Dislose and Telerama.
The French state was aware of
This monitoring system has been funded, write the two media, through the United Arab Emirates. “The order of the Egyptian state has reached us through an emiratia company that contacted us and told us of this need,” says Nexa Technologies in a message addressed to disclose.
Thales and Dassault have not answered disclose and telerama questions.
The French state was perfectly aware of this sale. Indeed, this type of monitoring technologies must be the subject of an export license. Nexa Technologies has therefore submitted to the Ministry of the Economy an application for “installation” and “project management” for Advanced Middle East Systems, which provided Egypt the actual monitoring provision.
The Ministry of the Economy, who had at his head Emmanuel Macron, did not oppose it. In the fall of 2014, he also gave his downstream to Ercom-Suneris. Solicited by Disclose and Télérama, the firm Bruno Le Maire did not wish to speak.