(November 22, 2021)

Laurent Aubigny’s name is well-known to the Sirli operational team, both civilian and military. Between 2016 and 2018, as then deputy director for research at the DRM, he supervised the agents’ mission in the field. It is also him who, since December 2020, presides over CAE Aviation, in what could appear to be a conflict of interest. Under the French defence code, a member of the armed forces does not have the right to join, within a period of three years after leaving their job in the military, “a company which they have been in charge of monitoring or controlling” or “with which they have concluded contracts or given advice upon contracts”.

According to that stipulation, Aubigny was entitled to join CEA Aviation only as of 2021. Contacted by Disclose, the French military’s deontology commission, which is in charge of studying such cases, did not reply to the questions submitted. Similarly, both the management of CEA Aviation, and the DRM, did not respond to questions submitted by Disclose.