The revelations from leaked classified documents inside the French government were timed to have the maximum impact. They purported to show that Egypt’s security officers had misused French intelligence in operations that had killed around 40,000 smugglers and destroyed 10,000 vehicles on the Libyan border
Disclose, the French investigative website, broke the story on 21 November last year – the same day that Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi arrived in Paris for a three-day visit of meetings with foreign minister Jean-Yves le Drian and President Emmanuel Macron to consolidate their countries’ strategic partnership.