Two suspected Chinese spies, accused of using a sleepy village in south-western France to gather information, have been arrested.
Residents of Camblanes-et-Meynac, about 15km (9 miles) from Bordeaux, grew suspicious when – after letting a house through rentals giant Airbnb – the Chinese pair erected a large parabolic antenna in the garden.
The dish was directed at the sky and locals noticed that its installation coincided with a spate of cuts to their own internet service.
Intelligence experts believe south-western France is being increasingly targeted by Chinese and other espionage because of the region’s proximity to defence, aerospace and telecommunication sites.
Last Saturday, officers from France’s General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) agency raided the house and seized a large quantity of computer equipment.
The men – Chinese nationals aged 27 and 29 – were questioned at DGSI headquarters in the suburbs of France’s capital Paris, and have now been charged with “delivering information to a foreign power… likely to damage the interests [of France]”.
They are being held in custody.
The prosecutor’s office said the men had arrived in France last month under work visas which said they were engineers at a company specialising in wireless communications.
Two other men of Chinese origin, but living in France, have been charged with providing assistance.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the suspected spies were trying to “capture satellite data from [X owner Elon Musk’s] Starlink network, as well as data from vital entities, notably military, in order to retransmit them to their country of origin, China”.
It is not the first time suspected Chinese spies have been caught in south-western France.
Last summer, a 51-year-old Chinese engineer was detained in the village of Boulogne-sur-Gesse, about 40 miles south-west of Toulouse. She had also installed a satellite dish and was suspected of trying to intercept signals from the Issus-Aussaguel ground station in the Toulouse suburbs.
Meanwhile, in December, a mathematics researcher at the University of Bordeaux’s Institute of Mechanics and Engineering was placed under judicial investigation for “providing information to a foreign power” after he allegedly allowed members of a Chinese delegation into a restricted area.
“We do not know precisely what the pair at Camblanes-et-Meynac were up to, but the list of potential targets in the south-west of France is very large,” said Jeremy André, an expert in Asian espionage at Intelligence Online.
In addition to Issus-Aussaguel – which communicates with satellites used by the French military and intelligence – there is a major airbase at Bordeaux-Mérignac. Defence industries like Airbus, Thales and Dassault all have installations in the area.
“Since World War One, the south-west has been a vital zone for French defence research,” André said. “The idea was to focus activity as far as possible from the frontline, and then it stayed.”
He continued: “We know that the Chinese have spent a lot of energy developing co-operation with towns and other collectivities in the south-west, via legitimate diplomatic and economic channels.
“In itself, there’s nothing wrong with that, but in doing so they create a tissue of links which can be activated on demand.”
According to intelligence experts, French authorities have recently decided to take cases like this to court. Previously, they would have chosen to deal with them covertly, suggesting a greater determination to publicise the espionage threat from China.
In Camblanes-et-Meynac, locals were bemused by the story.
“Here we tend to get artists, not spies,” said Mayor Jean-Philippe Guillemeot. “Maybe they just wanted somewhere nice and quiet.”
