Thirteen members of France’s political establishment will go on trial on Monday over the sale in spite of an international arms embargo of millions of dollars in weapons to oil-rich Angola.

Jacques Attali, an advisor to France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of former President François Mitterrand, Charles Pasqua, a former interior minister and the Israeli politician Arkadi Gaydamak are among those accused of helping to facilitate $790m (€576m) of arms sales to Angola between 1993-98.