This has resulted in particular in the establishment of an unprecedented monitoring structure, piloted by the Sisse, the economic intelligence service of Bercy, and baptized “Cerbère”. Created at the end of 2015, when Emmanuel Macron was Minister of the Economy, this “national monitoring and action system against Huawei interference” brings together five ministries (Bercy, the Quai d’Orsay, the Interior, Defense and Research), the intelligence services and the cybersecurity police (Anssi). Still in effect, this secret committee closely scrutinizes the activism of the Chinese giant in the academic and scientific fields. Huawei had, for example, signed partnerships with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and doctoral contracts (CIFRE) with the prestigious Telecom Paris engineering school. Except that faced with the aggressiveness of China, the government changed gear last summer and thus asked the CEA or Télécom Paris to put an end to their relations with Huawei.
Relay of influence
“Cerbère” is also interested in the way that a Chinese group relies on the notoriety of recognized scientific or political personalities. This was, for example, the case of Cédric Villani, the famous mathematician, winner of the Fields medal, who became an LREM deputy in 2017. Approached as part of a working group of the think tank Europanova, he then agreed to chair the jury. Huawei’s support program for French start-ups, Digital In-Pulse, and to participate in in-house conferences. The role of Jean-Louis Borloo, administrator of Huawei France from December 2016 to May 2020, was also closely observed. It still is, moreover, since according to our information, the investigators of the brigade financier is interested in the supply by Huawei of more than 200 video surveillance cameras to the city of Valenciennes in February 2017. At the time, Jean-Louis Borloo, former mayor of Valenciennes, had just joined the plank of the French subsidiary.
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The former Ecology Minister of Nicolas Sarkozy is not the only one to have yielded to the sirens of the Chinese firm. In September 2020, he was replaced by the former Socialist Secretary of State Jean-Marie Le Guen. A month later, it was the turn of the former president of Polytechnique, Jacques Biot, already a director of Huawei France, to be appointed chairman of the board of directors, a position which had been vacant since the departure, in 2018, by François Quentin, ex-Thales. The new boss of plank In particular, there was a lot concerning the investment in the future Brumath factory in Alsace, where Huawei intends to create 500 jobs in the long term and install its first antenna production site outside China.
“Sinicization” of the teams
The French subsidiary, which has around 1,000 employees, has also suffered the full brunt of the Sino-American economic war. In the summer of 2019, in the midst of the controversy over 5G, the Chinese group’s senior management decided to directly attach the “public affairs and communication” department of some of its subsidiaries, such as France or Germany, to the headquarters of the group, in Shenzhen. This coincided with the arrival in Paris of Linda Han, 37, monk-soldier and real boss of Huawei France. According to several former Huawei executives, it has carried out a “sinicization” of the teams, in particular with the arrival of Han Qian. Passed by the official Chinese government news agency, New China, she joined, in the spring of 2020, a “public affairs and communication” department, which has grown, in a few months, from 10 to 25 people. In March 2019, Huawei France also decided to file a complaint against French researcher Valérie Niquet for proposals deemed defamatory by the Chinese group. The trial will take place this summer, with, for once, Huawei in the role of the accuser.