French authorities have placed four people, including two Chinese nationals, under formal investigation for allegedly trying to intercept satellite communications from a base at a rental property in south-western France.
French authorities on Thursday charged four people, including two Chinese nationals, on suspicion of having intercepted sensitive military data for Beijing, the Paris prosecutor's office said.
The move follows the arrest of four individuals at the weekend in the village of Camblanes-et-Meynac in the south-western Gironde region, where the two Chinese suspects allegedly rented an Airbnb as part of a plan to capture sensitive information, including military intelligence.
The Paris prosecutor's office said two individuals have been remanded in custody and two others placed under judicial supervision, without offering details on their identities.
The probe focuses on the "delivery of information to a foreign power" likely to harm key national interests, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The case was triggered after residents on 30 January spotted the installation of a satellite dish approximately two metres in diameter, which coincided with a local internet outage.
A search the following day led to the discovery of "a system of computers connected to satellite dishes enabling the capture of satellite data", according to the prosecutor's office.
The set-up made it possible to intercept "exchanges between military entities", it said.
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'Secret war'
The two Chinese nationals had allegedly travelled to France with the intent to capture data from the Starlink satellite internet network – founded by Elon Musk – and other "entities of vital importance" and transmit it back to China.
Their visa applications stated that they worked as engineers for a research and development company specialising in wireless communication equipment.
The two other suspects were arrested over allegations they illegally imported the equipment, the prosecutor's office said, without providing details of their identities.
This is not the first Chinese espionage case to come to light in France. In 2021, a report on Chinese operations around the world by Irsem, the École Militaire's Strategic Research Institute, highlighted that France was a priority for Beijing's intelligence services.
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In 2025, an illegal antenna was found to have been installed near Toulouse. “There were questions about whether the intercepted information could have led to the destruction of a satellite supplied by France to a third country,” said Jérémy André, senior reporter at Intelligence Online, which revealed the case.
“This is not cold observation,” he told RFI. “Today, there is a secret war going on, and it is taking place in space in particular.”
Strategic south-west France
In a separate case, a French professor of applied mathematics working was charged in December with allowing a Chinese delegation to visit sensitive sites in a case of suspected espionage. The engineering institute in Bordeaux where he works has been partially designated as a "restricted area" since 2019.
He has been released under judicial supervision, but faces charges of "providing information to a foreign power" and "colluding with a foreign power".
Recent Chinese espionage cases have taken place in the south-west of France, between Bordeaux and Toulouse – the heart of the French aeronautics, space and defence industries.
The village of Camblanes-et-Meynac, where the most recent case occurred, is located just a few kilometres from the only Starlink ground station in France, in the town of Villenave d'Ornon.
(with newswires)
