A court in Meaux, East of Paris, yesterday (24 April) heard allegations that two former gendarmes and Euro Disney, the company operating Disneyland Paris, spied on candidates applying for work within the theme park.

The gendarmes, who were retired at the time, are alleged to have asked former colleagues to check official records for details of previous offences or arrests. They passed on more than 2,500 candidate names, which were checked against police files up until 2004, earning tens of thousands of euros from Euro Disney.

A lawyer for one of the defendants says the men were “acting in a gray zone” and that the law does not provide any other method for Disneyland to make sure it does not recruit “paedophiles or drug traffickers”.

Le Figaro notes that one of the two men appearing in court had been convicted on similar charges of giving information to a private detective in May 2010, for which he received an eight months suspended sentence and a fine of €4k (£3.4k).

A third man, who died in April 2012, was also alleged to have been involved.