Recap of the first four articles in our series: Through videos and exclusive access to documents, the FRANCE 24 Observers team was able to reveal that mortar shells found in the Sudanese desert were manufactured by the Bulgarian company Dunarit, and then sold on to the Emirati firm International Golden Group, known for diverting weapons to countries under international embargo. The munitions ended up in Libya and finally Sudan as part of a convoy that included Colombian mercenaries. Similar weapons are regularly used to bomb Sudanese civilians.
Read moreEuropean weapons in Sudan (1/5): Bulgarian mortar shells in Darfur’s desert
Read moreEuropean weapons in Sudan (2/5): A €50 million Emirati contract
Read moreEuropean weapons in Sudan (3/5): The mercenaries who travelled through Libya
Read moreEuropean bombs in Sudan (4/5): "The RSF bombs public buildings, markets, and hospitals"
Is the channel of supply documented by the FRANCE 24 Observers team between the Emirati company International Golden Group and the Bulgarian weapons manufacturer Dunarit still operating? Were other similar contracts signed? Our team put these questions to Dunarit, but the Bulgarian manufacturer did not respond. International Golden Group, for its part, hasn’t responded to any of our questions.
One thing is certain: International Golden Group is still very active in the UAE, as well as on the international stage. This supplier of weapons and security services was purchased in January 2024 by the Edge group, a conglomerate of defence companies financed by the Emirati state.
Partnerships with French and other European companies
Just before it was acquired by the Edge group, International Golden Group signed a series of partnerships, including with French companies.
In February 2023, the Emirati company launched a joint venture with French defence specialist Safran. The venture, according to Safran, would focus on developments within the fields of optronics and navigation to “meet the needs of the United Arab Emirates MOD [Ministry of Defence] and the needs of other regional organisations.”
The joint venture would be based at the premises of the International Golden Group, under the auspices of the 'Tawazun Economic Program', an Emirati public fund for developing the defence industry. The president of the branch of Safran visited the new premises on February 13, 2025, just ahead of the opening of the UAE’s major defence exposition, IDEX, where the French company was listed as an exhibitor.
Next in line to sign a deal with International Golden Group wasNexter, now KNDS France, which is 50 percent owned by the French government and is the manufacturer of the Leclerc tank. In February 2023, the group stated that the aim was to modernise the Emirati army’s Leclerc tanks to “ensure [their] operational superiority for the next 30 years." KNDS France also attended this year’s IDEX expo.
An older partnership, dating from 2009, exists between the Emirati company and Thales, a French group specialising in aerospace and defence. Originally, the partnership was meant to “ensure the protection of critical [...] infrastructures, especially those linked to oil and gas exploitation in the United Arab Emirates.” In 2017, this collaboration was reinforced when International Golden Group signed another agreement with Thales Optronique, a former subsidiary of the French group, according to an article published by the UAE’s state press agency WAM.
The article was modified and released again the next day, without the reference to the French group. Our team asked Thales if these partnerships were ongoing, but they did not respond to this question. Thus, we were unable to confirm if Thales still has operational partnerships with International Golden Group or Edge Group.
And French companies weren’t the only major European defence groups lining up to sign deals with International Golden Group or its new parent company, Edge group —as was made clear at the 2025 edition of the IDEX salon, held in Abu Dhabi between February 17 and 21. Among them are the Spanish company Indra and the Italian group Leonardo, both of which have signed agreements with the Edge Group. Edge Group was even listed as a “strategic partner” for the defense expo, according to its site.
Tony Fortin, with the France-based Observatoire des armements (Arms Observatory), which gathers information on the sales of arms and companies involved, says:
With this type of joint venture, the Emirates is seeking a transfer of skills. These skills will allow the Emirates to manufacture their own military material and thus build their own defence apparatus. It is a sort of counterpart to the significant European export of arms to this country.
Business as usual for the International Golden Group and Edge Group
International Golden Group landed one of the biggest contracts of the expo -—a whopping 178 million euros to provide ammunition to the Emirati army. This is significant because the International Golden Group previously obtained weapons by claiming that the end user was the Emirati army. Those weapons were then exported to Libya, as documented by reports by the UN Panel of Experts on Libya.
There is no evidence to support that the technology and equipment International Golden Group or the Edge Group received from their partnerships with European companies will be deployed to Sudan to support the Rapid Support Forces.
However, this kind of weapons diversion would not be unheard of for companies well-known for violating international embargoes. Back in November 2024, an investigation by the NGO Amnesty International revealed that French-manufactured defence systems had been found in Sudan, on armoured personnel carriers which had been used by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
International Golden Group’s parent company, the Edge Group, manufactures the armoured personnel carrier models that were equipped with French defence systems, designed and exported by the French companies KNDS France and Lacroix Defense.
Our team contacted Lacroix Defense to ask them about Amnesty International’s investigation.
Lacroix confirmed to us that they had “supplied Galix self-defence systems to the Emirati Armed Forces.”
“These deliveries were carried out respecting the export licences granted to Lacroix and associated non-re-export certificates,” the group said. Lacroix Defense also wanted to emphasise that Galix is a “passive self-protection solution”, not an offensive tool. Though we asked, the company did not tell us if the Emiratis had sought authorisation to export these systems to Sudan.
When we asked KNDS France they replied that they “are not the exporter and only carried out a sale in France to Lacroix [...]. For this reason, KNDS France does not know the end user while the order is taking place and being carried out.”
Despite the findings of Amnesty International, KNDS France was public about its participation in the 2025 IDEX in the UAE. The group posted photos on LinkedIn of French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu’s visit to the defence expo. In another photo, you can see that the stand run by representatives from KNDS France is right next to the stand exhibiting Nimr vehicles, manufactured by Edge Group.
'Some groups refuse to work with IGG: so why are French companies doing it?'
Tony Fortin explains that there is a long and deep history linking the French defence industry and the United Arab Emirates.
It is important to recognise that, in 2011, 70% of defence equipment used by the United Arab Emirates was of French origin. This was through a large number of partnerships: naval technology was big in the 90s after the UAE purchased a number of French construction sites. Then, there was satellite and communication technology. EDIC [Editor’s note: Emirates Defence Industries Company, an Emiraty company taken over by Edge Group since then], was run by Luc Vigneron, a former CEO of Thales. France really enabled the UAE to establish the current capacity to produce arms.
The problem today is that there is a real risk of arms being diverted. The UAE’s policy towards some countries like Yemen, Somalia and Sudan is documented in reports by UN Panels of Experts, for example. We know that some international defence groups refuse to work with International Golden Group or Edge group. So why are French companies doing it? They need to explain themselves.
When the FRANCE 24 team contacted the French and European companies mentioned in this article, they said that they had carried out their activities with respect to local and international laws.We used selections of the responses given when they provided a specific piece of information concerning the topic under examination.
