The French offices of the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei were raided on Tuesday January 6 in a procedure relating to suspicions of breaches of probity, a judicial source reported to Agence France-Presse on Thursday February 8 ( AFP). Confirming online media information The Informedthis source specified that the preliminary investigation was carried out by magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF).
It was not immediately possible to have more details on the facts alleged against the company, whose French headquarters is located in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), a few steps from the Paris ring road. Violations of integrity include offenses such as corruption, influence peddling and illegal taking of interests.
The magazine Challenges announced in April 2022 that after a report in January 2021 from the French Anti-Corruption Agency (AFA) on possible abuse of corporate assets and tax evasion, a preliminary investigation had been opened in Nanterre on Huawei, entrusted to the financial brigade from Paris. However, the judicial source interviewed by AFP declared on Thursday that it was not a question “no investigation from Nanterre following a report from the AFA”.
The company represents 20% of the French market
Arriving in France in 2003, where the Chinese group opened six research centers and a global design center in Paris, Huawei is currently building a factory in Alsace, its first outside China, with the aim of starting there “end of 2025” its production of equipment for mobile telecoms networks, including 5G networks.
The company claims a 20% share of the French telecoms infrastructure market, despite the strong restrictions resulting from the so-called “anti-Huawei” law of 2019, aimed at protecting French networks from “risks of espionage, hacking and sabotage” enabled by 5G.
Founded in 1987, Huawei, a privately held, unlisted company, claims to employ more than 200,000 people in more than 170 countries and regions.
“Risk for the security of the Union”
The group based in the metropolis of Shenzhen, in southern China, has for several years been at the center of an intense technological rivalry between Beijing and Washington. The United States accuses the company of being able to spy for the benefit of Chinese authorities, which Huawei strongly disputes. The brand also remains the world’s leading equipment manufacturer for 5G, the fifth generation of mobile Internet.
In June 2023, the European Commission estimated that Chinese telecom equipment suppliers, including Huawei, represented a “risk for the security of the Union » European.
The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, called on the twenty-seven EU member countries and telecom operators to exclude this equipment from their mobile networks.