I take that back. You're talking about T&G aviation, and yes, they did send their airplanes to France. However, they had permission to do that, and it was never a matter of claiming to have the airplanes on contract in the US, and then leaving the country. That didn't happen.
The issue was the use of the airplanes after procurement from the military, in exchange for older firefighting airplanes (mostly C-119's) which were traded to military museums.
The entire affair was actually a cover for the people who really brokered the deal, and who are now in prison, who were fronting for a certain agency who was attempting to procure over 100 A-10's in the name of firefighting. Ultimately, those airplanes were to be farmed out to international recipients.
The C-130's and P-3's were just cover for the A-10's. The hype about alternate use of the herc's was nothing more than media misdirection (and very misplaced, as it caused several people a lot of trouble who were doing nothing wrong) to draw attention from the intended illicit use of the A-10's.
It wasn't Tucson, incidentally. It was Phoenix. The brokering of the aircraft was in California, however. The lions share of the controversy about the use of the herc's wasn't the overseas issue, but the use of the airplanes in Alaska to haul fish, during the off season.
The matter is closed now, as the USFS took title of the aircraft, directly from the DoD, three years ago. Indictments are still pending on the origonal use of the aircraft against several key individuals, while we may soon see more aircraft released to the operators for the same purposes. The next year of so shall tell.