In addition to suspicions of favouritism in the awarding of public contracts linked to the chartering of cargo planes, these two defendants are being prosecuted for passive corruption (concerning Colonel Rives) or active corruption (for Mr de Jonquières), violation of professional secrecy and illegal taking of interests (for Colonel Rives).
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Both men face up to 10 years in prison.
The misconduct attributed to Mr Rives, now a middle school teacher, is “unacceptable, inexcusable and extremely serious”, said one of the two prosecutors from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), while asking the court to pronounce “the fairest and most appropriate sentence” for the current situation of the defendants.
Philippe de Fauque de Jonquières, a flamboyant former business leader, has lost all the air transport contracts that linked him to the French army and is now no longer active.
“At 53, I live with my mother, I no longer have an income and I can no longer pay my daughters’ maintenance,” he summed up at the bar of the 32nd chamber during his hearing.
In the absence of a tricolour solution, between ageing Transalls or A400Ms with delayed delivery, the army regularly used “very large Russian or Ukrainian carriers” for its Opex during the 2010s, notably Antonov 124s, “a rare resource on a global level” that ICS could provide.
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But the rules of the game were rigged, according to the PNF, which opened an investigation into ICS in 2017 after a damning report by the Court of Auditors in 2016 on the logistics of Opex.
All the defendants, including two former generals, are suspected, to varying degrees, of having participated in an operation which allowed the company ICS to be favoured in the awarding of several logistics contracts, in particular concerning air transport for French army operations in Afghanistan and Africa.
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