Photo: Organizers turn cars away during a shift change outside the Safran Electronics & Defense Canada Inc. facility in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. Photo by Irene Suvillaga (Canadian Dimension magazine, March 2024).
Safran is both a sponsor and an exhibitor at the CANSEC arms show taking place at the EY Centre in Ottawa on May 27-28, 2026.
In their “Guide to French arms companies complicit with Israel, 2025 Edition”, Stop Arming Israel (France) notes: “Specializing in aero engines, equipment for civil and military aviation, and advanced electronics, Safran employs nearly 100,000 people worldwide, including more than 45,000 in France across its numerous subsidiaries, with around 20% of its business dedicated to the military sector.”
That Guide highlights: “In 2024, Safran Aircraft Engines placed an order with the Israeli startup Odysight.ai to acquire its predictive maintenance system based on micro-cameras combined with artificial intelligence software that analyzes the operating status of an aircraft in real time. This same technology is also used by the Israeli Air Force for its combat helicopters.”
Actions in France
In March 2024, Anadolu Agency reported: “Activists from the Stop Arming Israel organization in Paris held a protest in front of the headquarters of Safran… Marking a global day of action against arms companies ‘complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank’, member of Loic, one of the groups under Stop Arming Israel, told Anadolu that it was ‘mobilized in front of Safran Electronics and Defense headquarters in response of this call’. The group is there to ‘denounce the company’s complicity in the ongoing war,’ the member added.”
In December 2023, Workers in Palestine also noted: “The [Stop Arming Israel] collective, comprised of trade unionists, workers and activists have held frequent pickets of arms factories, arms fairs and university-based arms research centres, and have flyered workers at the Safran Genneviliers and Safran Velizy plants.”
Belgium
Stop Arming Israel (Belgium) has documented: “Safran Aero Boosters, 31% owned by the Walloon government, produces components for the American F-15 and F-16 warplanes in Herstal. These aircraft end up in the hands of the Israeli army and are used to bomb Palestine. …In Belgium, Safran has three operational sites: a production site for engines used for the F-15, a test center in Liers, and Safran Aircraft Engine Services in Zaventem and Steenokkerzeel.”
The Belgian news agency RTBF has also reported: “By analyzing in detail the types of fighter-bombers and the armies that use them, our experts are categorical: the engine parts manufactured by the Walloon company Safran Aero Boosters are indeed found in the reactors of Israeli F-15s and in particular in those used recently over Gaza or South Lebanon.”
Image by RTBF.
In February 2024, the Palestinian Youth Movement noted: “Community members in Peterborough where Safran Electronics [is located] was shut down, as it provides telemetry equipment to the Israeli government and weapons manufacturers.”
Canadian Dimension further reports: “Just after dawn on February 26, a group of approximately 40 activists blocked both driveway entrances to the Safran Electronics & Defense Canada Inc. facility located in the south-end of Peterborough.”
The article explains: “In Canada, Safran’s direct subsidiary, Safran Electronics, employs over 1,700 workers at seven industrial sites across the country, including in Ajax, Montréal, Mirabel and London. Safran Electronics manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones), military aircraft engines, optronic equipment and sites, as well as other components for military operations.”
That article in Canadian Dimension magazine by Professor Kirsten Francescone and freelance journalist Irene Suvillaga also notes: “A press release from 2021 identifies an agreement between Safran and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., an Israeli defence company, to produce a proprietary battlefield targeting technology which is designed to ‘improve situational awareness for ground forces.’ Safran has also supplied surveillance equipment including fingerprint scanners and mounted camera systems to the Judea and Samaria police force in the occupied West Bank to uphold what Amnesty International has described as a system of ‘automated apartheid.’”
Photo by Irene Suvillaga (Canadian Dimension magazine, March 2024).
At the time of the blockade in Peterborough, Ontario, students at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec also began a hunger strike to demand that their university divest its shareholdings in Safran.
The McGill Daily has reported: “French company Safran supplied biometric technology to the Israeli Police Force operating in the West Bank in 2013. …McGill currently invests $1,507,748 in Safran.”
The Guardian also quoted Rania Amine, an undergraduate student at McGill University on her 33rd day of a hunger strike against these investments, saying: “McGill has ultimately pushed us to take this extreme form of action and put our bodies and our health and our lives on the line to make them know that it is absolutely unacceptable that they use our tuition money to invest in this way.” Middle East Eye reported that Rania was hospitalized on her 34th day of being on hunger strike.
On Wet’suwet’en territory
Francescone and Suvillaga also note: “In 2023, Peace Brigades International reported that the RCMP special task force responsible for the militarized raids on the ancestral lands of the Wet’suwet’en nation in British Columbia utilize Airbus H145 helicopters, the engines for which are produced by Safran.”
Vertical has reported: “The machine’s two Safran Helicopter Engines Arriel 2E turbines are equipped with full-authority digital engine control (FADEC), which integrates with the H145’s state-of-the-art Helionix avionics suite.” The link between the Airbus H145 and Safran Arriel engines is also made on this Safran website.
Shut Down CANSEC, May 27-28
A wide range of social movements, peace groups, faith communities, non-governmental organizations, and individuals will be mobilizing to protest the CANSEC arms show on Wednesday May 27 and Thursday May 28.
