As soon as a camera lens appears, he hides behind a pillar. If cameras can't be avoided, he hides behind a surgical face mask, sometimes topped off with a jaunty green fedora, which fits with the old-fashioned Italian dandy style he has recently adopted, according to those who have known him for a long time.

However, these acquaintances and the facial recognition software programs used by Le Monde and its partners at the Hungarian investigative website Direkt36 confirm that the man who takes such care to hide his face in the photos of the many Hungarian diplomatic visits to the Sahel in recent months is indeed none other than Viktor Orban's son.

"It's 100% him," said one person who knows him well, after consulting one of the rare photos on Facebook in which he shows his face, taken during a trip to Chad in October 2023. Hitherto a low-profile army officer, Gaspar Orban, only son of Hungary's nationalist prime minister (who also has four daughters) and aged just 32, is now at the heart of the astonishing diplomatic and military offensive the Hungarian leader is launching in the Sahel region.

Over the coming months, 200 Hungarian troops are set to be deployed in the Republic of Chad. The aim of this operation, which is unprecedented for Hungary, is "to perform advisory, support and battlefield mentoring tasks, and to support the fight against terrorism," according to the mandate adopted by the Hungarian parliament in November.

For months this mission, in an African country that was previously far removed from Hungarian interests, has raised questions in Budapest – but also in Paris. France still has a presence of more than 1,000 soldiers in Chad, its last ally in the Sahel after a succession of coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, led by soldiers who have drawn closer to Moscow.

The fact that Orban's son is directly involved in the Hungarian operation is well known to the French authorities. However, Paris is confident that this mission will contribute to the stabilization of the country in collaboration with French forces, despite Orban's continuing close ties with Vladimir Putin. It is notable that the Russian president met with his Chadian counterpart in Moscow on January 24, promising that he would "contribute in every possible way" to the stability of his country.

While the presence of Orban's son has been carefully erased from all images published by official Hungarian sources, Le Monde and Direkt36 were able to identify him in photos published by African sources on Facebook during at least three trips to Chad in recent months. A man resembling him, but systematically concealing his face, also appeared on the sidelines of two other trips to Niger. This figure was first recognizable in May 2023 in Maradi, Niger, next to Tristan Azbej, the Hungarian state secretary for the aid of persecuted Christians, a portfolio that also oversees the Hungarian development aid agency, Hungary Helps.

You have 65% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.