The Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, commented, during a press conference on Tuesday March 26, on the publication of an article by the site Disclosed according to which France delivered cartridge parts to Israel “likely to be used against civilians in the Gaza Strip”.
The article, posted online on Monday, reports a delivery of M27 links, used to connect machine gun bullets, sent by the Marseille company Eurolinks to the Israeli company IMI Systems from the port of Marseille. This information, which concerns approximately 100,000 pieces, had not, at the time of Sébastien Lecornu’s speech, been verified by The world.
In response to a question from a journalist on the subject, the Minister of the Armed Forces declared, regarding the M27 links concerned: for the equipment “ which links each of the munitions together – this is this morning’s article – it is a license which only concerns re-export. » Before continuing: “The French license that was given does not give the Israeli army the right to use these components. »
Fifteen million euros in orders in 2022
Mr. Lecornu, a few seconds earlier, had declared that export licenses were subject to a “very rigorous control” and that their supervision rules had been strengthened “last fall”either at the time of delivery described by Disclose, “at the request of the President of the Republic”.
The minister then explained: “You have licenses which only concern materials intended for re-export, that is to say not for use by the Israeli army (…) [Ces matériels ne sont] never constituted armaments, always components, which can be supplied to Israeli industries which then sell to third countries”.
More generally, Sébastien Lecornu announced that in 2022, orders placed by Israel with French defense industries represented 15 million euros. “The 2023 sum is not yet completely stabilizedhe clarified, because these are the actually executed commands I’m telling you about. »
Within this order, according to the minister, are both components whose license only provides for the possibility of re-export for Israel, and other components “which go into purely defensive systems”. “Same, never armament, always small components, ball bearings, nuts machined in a particular way. This is particularly the case for small components of the Iron Domecontinued the minister. Obviously for this moment, the components for the Iron Dome have no reason to be the subject of a prohibition license since we are on equipment as you know, which is strictly defensive and which does not intervene not in the Gaza Strip »