As the dust settles on Monday’s plane crash, the names of the five French victims remain conspicuous by their absence.
It is standard procedure for the names of passengers who perish in aviation disasters to be released by authorities, once their next-of-kin have been notified and given time to digest the terrible news. This did not happen following Monday's crash: why?
The answer to that question lies in the crew members' ties to French spy agency DGSE. Three of the deceased were directly employed by the agency, the French defence ministry confirmed in the hours following the crash; the other two were employed by CAE Aviation, the firm that leased the plane to the French government.
READ: What was the plane that crashed really doing?
French military tradition demands absolute secrecy when it comes to the nation’s intelligence operatives, even after their death.
In part, the reticence to name names is down to the secretive nature of DGSE missions. But safety concerns also play a part, said a former French defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“DGSE missions often involve high-level targets, and revealing agents’ identities, even after their death, exposes their relatives to unnecessary risk,” they said. "They could easily become targets for retaliatory attacks."
The absolute silence surrounding the victims’ identities mirrors what happened last July, when three DGSE agents were killed after their helicopter was shot down over Benghazi in eastern Libya.
READ: Questions surround Monday's plane crash
On that occasion, no information about the victims’ identities was made public, and journalists remained none the wiser.
Writing on Le Point, French journalist Jean Guisnel pointed out that French President Francois Hollande had already infuriated the French intelligence community earlier this month, when a newly-released book quoted him boasting about having ordered “at least four” targeted killings.
Hollande is unlikely to have the stomach for another attention-grabbing controversy, especially in the wake of new polls revealing his approval ratings have hit an all-time low of 4 per cent.
What do we know about the victims?
Not much, truth be told.
According to Guisnel’s sources, the three DGSE operatives aboard the plane were part of the directorate’s GAM 56 aerial division, which is based in Evreux, in the north of France. Very little is known about this secretive division, although in 2012 the entire division was awarded one of France’s highest military honours, the Cross for Military Valour – Bronze Palm.
The other two men were employed by aircraft owners and surveillance specialists CAE Aviation, and were the plane’s pilot and co-pilot. French sources say it appears the two men were former special forces pilots who subsequently moved into the private sector.
In the hours following the crash, the Maltese government issued a statement saying the five men’s remains had been found. CAE Aviation subsequently announced that it had contacted the next-of-kin of its two deceased employees.
The five men’s remains will most likely be kept in Malta until investigations into the crash have been completed, sources said.
Aside from political fallout, French authorities may also have to grapple with some thorny legal issues presented by the crash.
French journalist Philippe Chapleau has pointed out that an official memo dated January 2016 stated that, legally speaking, leased aircraft could not be considered to form part of the French state's fleet and that its crew were not defence employees.
While families of the three DGSE agents will receive insurance payouts from the French government, it is not clear whether the families of the two CAE Aviation contractors are similarly covered, Chapleau noted in a post on his military affairs blog Lignes De Defense.
"The silence, or rather opacity, surrounding this case will hardly encourage debate over the status, rights/responsibilities of 'contractors' France makes use of," wrote Chapleau.