A couple of years ago I was flying an A320 in french airspace and requested a 2000 ft step climb, which was granted. On this particular airbus TCAS returns only showed in 40nm range. Just before starting the climb I reduced map range to 40 miles to find two contacts at my cleared level just 3 miles ahead. On querying the controller, I was told that they must be military traffic and was not under his control!