France has "participated in the bloody Egyptian repression" for the past five years by delivering weapons and surveillance systems to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government, rights groups charged in a report published Monday.

The study was released as Egypt's Defence Minister Mohamed Zaki was due to undertake an official visit to Paris on Monday and comes after France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian met Sisi in Cairo last week.

Zaki would "meet senior military officials in France to discuss ways to strengthen joint co-operation", Egyptian army spokesman Tamer al-Refai said Monday.

Commissioned by four French and Egyptian human rights groups, the report found French arms sales to Egypt had leapt from 39.6 million to 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) between 2010 and 2016.

In addition, "by supplying Egyptian security services and law enforcement agencies with powerful digital tools, they have helped establish an Orwellian surveillance and control architecture that is being used to eradicate all forms of dissent and citizen action," the groups said.

They charged that French companies were also complicit in what they called a "relentless crackdown" since Sisi overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

The report cited companies selling technology used for mass data interception and crowd control, as well as a surveillance system under which tens of thousands of opponents and activists had been arrested.

"The Egyptian revolution of 2011 was driven by an ultra-connected 'Facebook generation' that knew how to mobilise crowds," said Bahey Eldin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), one of the groups behind the report.

"Today France is helping to crush this generation through the establishment of an Orwellian surveillance and control system aimed at nipping in the bud any expression of protest," he said.

The report charges that at least eight French companies have "profited from this repression" despite a European Union declaration in 2013 that member states had suspended export licences to Egypt for equipment that could be used for domestic repression.

The companies include Arquus — formerly Renault Trucks Defense — as well as major defence supplier DCNS.

"Our organisations seek from French companies and authorities an immediate end to these deadly exports," the groups said.

The report was commissioned by the CIHRS alongside the French-based International Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights League and Armaments Observatory.

French arms exports halved in 2017, Mideast clients still biggest
Paris (AFP) July 2, 2018 –

French weaponry exports fell sharply last year in the absence of major deals to sell new Rafale fighter jets, with Middle Eastern clients again making up the bulk of the orders, the defence ministry said Monday.

In its annual report to parliament, the ministry said the value of exports dropped to 6.9 billion euros ($8 billion) from 14 billion euros the previous year and the record 17 billion euros booked in 2015.

Those two years saw the first big export orders for Rafale jets made by Dassault Aviation — to Egypt, Qatar and India — following a string of failed efforts to sell the planes outside France.

But France, the world's third-biggest arms exporter after the US and Russia, will book an additional 12 Rafale sales to Qatar this year.

"The results from 2017, with 6.9 billion euros, is in line with the average from years before the Rafale contracts," the ministry said.

It added that helicopters and missiles made up nearly half of last year's foreign orders.

Orders from Middle East clients rose to 3.9 billion euros from 1.9 billion in 2016, despite an economic slowdown stemming from lower oil prices "which delayed some acquisition projects," the ministry said.

NGOs and other critics have assailed France for supplying weapons to Mideast governments, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over their support for pro-government forces in Yemen fighting Huthi rebels.

Around 10,000 Yemeni citizens have died in the fighting, and some groups accuse the Saudi-led coalition of bombing schools, hospitals and other civilian targets.

A March poll found 74 percent of French people against selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and 71 percent were against supplying to the United Arab Emirates.

Humanitarian groups say Paris is violating the Arms Trade Treaty it ratified in 2014, which requires exporters to ensure their weapons will not be used for human rights abuses.

A group of four NGOs also denounced on Monday the surge in French arms exports to Egypt, including surveillance equipment it says President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government is using to "eradicate all forms of dissent and citizen action."

Their statement came as Egypt's Defence Minister Mohamed Zaki made an official visit to France, just a week after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian met Sisi in Cairo last week.

But the defence ministry rejected such claims in its annual report.

"These exports are carried out within a strict legal framework. They scrupulously respect to the letter the treaties and international commitments" signed by France, it said.

The ministry also rejected 50 export contracts, mainly to governments in Central and Southern Asia.

Defence chief Florence Parly will present the report during an audition Wednesday with lawmakers, some of whom are pushing for more parliamentary control on arms sales.