France charges maths professor accused in China spying case
The academic allegedly let a Chinese delegation visit sensitive sites and could be jailed for years if convicted
A French applied mathematics professor has been charged with allowing a Chinese delegation to visit sensitive sites in a case of suspected espionage, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
The lecturer at a university engineering institute in the southwestern town of Bordeaux was charged on December 16 but released under judicial supervision, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
The charges against him include “providing information to a foreign power” and “colluding with a foreign power”, which can be punished by up to 15 and 10 years in jail respectively, it added.
“This civil servant is suspected in particular of having allowed members of a Chinese delegation to enter restricted areas whose sensitivity had been described as highly significant,” it said.
The engineering institute where he works has been partially designated as a “restricted area” since 2019.
Such sites are given extra protection to avoid scientific or technical know-how from being intercepted and used to weaken France’s “means of defence” or “compromise its security”, as well as other potential uses, according to the penal code.