Airbus CEO Thomas Enders dismissed a French insider trading investigation as a “show trial” and said a probe into his sale of shares in parent company EADS have not affected the way he runs the European planemaker.

French investigators are looking at the selling of the stock by company executives and shareholders at the aerospace and defense giant before a June 2006 announcement of delays for the A380 superjumbo. EADS shares tumbled 26 percent in one day when those problems were revealed.

Enders is one of 17 people suspected by the French Financial Markets Authority, or AMF, of possible insider trading. According to the AMF, he sold 50,000 shares for a profit of $1 million.

“This is a show trial, this is bad theater, and I think that needs to be said very clearly,” Enders said Saturday in comments for release Sunday.

“The company I lead has an awful lot of challenges and that is where I spend my time,” he told reporters in the southern English village of Dogmersfield.

EADS and Airbus have suffered a rocky couple of years plagued by trouble with the A380 and management turmoil.

Airbus, which accounts for two-thirds of EADS’ revenue, is in the midst of a restructuring program that includes 10,000 job cuts over four years. The planemaker is also struggling to cope with the ever-more-expensive euro, which eats into profits. Unlike Boeing Co., many of Airbus’ costs are in euros, while it sells its planes in dollars.

EADS CEO Louis Gallois, who did not sell shares at the time, reiterated EADS’ support for executives under investigation.

France has two related probes, one by the Paris prosecutor, the other by the Financial Markets Authority.

“I keep my full confidence in people who have not been judged,” he said. They will continue in their functions with “full authority because they have the presumption of innocence.”

In a letter sent to Airbus employees in October, Enders said that when he exercised stock options in November 2005, “there was no reason to believe it would be improper.”

Preliminary charges were filed Friday against Andreas Sperl, the former chief financial officer of Airbus and current head of the EADS Dresden plant in Germany, as part of the insider trading probe.

Sperl is the fourth person to be formally targeted in the probe of Airbus parent EADS, and the first who still works for the company.

French authorities have already filed preliminary charges against three former EADS executives _ former co-CEO Noel Forgeard; Jean-Paul Gut, a former deputy chief executive who oversaw strategy; and Gustav Humbert, a former Airbus president.

Stefan Zoller, head of EADS defense and security division and also targeted by the AMF, said Saturday that “it’s very difficult to understand what is going on here.”

“We would very much like to show evidence that there is nothing behind this and whatever supports that we would be glad to see,” he said.