French Junior Minister for Transport Dominique Bussereau told i- tele TV news that French civil aviation authorities had kept Yemenia Airways under close surveillance and had detected "very many defects" on the aircraft. The plane "disappeared from French skies" after these defects were found," Bussereau said."
This statement, which I find rather smug,
suggests that, rather than fix the defects found by the French civil aviation authorities, Yemenia simply kept it out of French airports/airspace.
There has been no evidence put forward that the defects were not fixed. Nor do we know how serious the defects were - obviously not serious enough to ground the aircraft in France until the problems were fixed.