Directorate-General for External Security

History

Origins

The DGSE can trace its roots back to 27 November 1943, when a central external intelligence agency, known as the DGSS (Direction générale des services spéciaux), was founded by politician Jacques Soustelle. The name of the agency was changed on 26 October 1944, to DGER (Direction générale des études et recherches). As the organisation was characterised by numerous cases of nepotism, abuses and political feuds, Soustelle was removed from his position as Director.

Former free-fighter André Dewavrin, aka "Colonel Passy", was tasked to reform the DGER; he fired more than 8,300 of the 10,000 full-time intelligence workers Soustelle had hired, and the agency was renamed SDECE (Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage) on 28 December 1945. The SDECE also brought under one head a variety of separate agencies – some, such as the well-known Deuxième Bureau, aka 2e Bureau, created by the military circa 1871–1873 in the wake of the birth of the French Third Republic. Another was the BRCA (Bureau central de renseignements et d'action), formed during WWII, from July 1940 to 27 November 1943, with André Dewavrin as its head.

On 2 April 1982, the new left wing government of François Mitterrand extensively reformed the SDECE and renamed it DGSE. The SDECE had remained independent until the mid-1960s, when it was discovered to have been involved in the kidnapping and presumed murder of Mehdi Ben Barka, a Moroccan revolutionary living in Paris. Following this scandal, it was announced that the agency was placed under the control of the French Ministry of Defence. In reality, foreign intelligence activities in France have always been supervised by the military since 1871, for political reasons mainly relating to anti-Bonapartism and the rise of Socialism. Exceptions related to telecommunications interception and cyphering and code-breaking, which were also conducted by the police in territorial France, and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs abroad, and economic and financial intelligence, which were also carried out initially by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, from 1915 onwards, by the Ministry of Commerce until the aftermath of WWII, when the SDECE of the Ministry of Defence took over the specialty in partnership with the Ministry for the Economy and Finance.

In 1992, most of the defence responsibilities of the DGSE, no longer relevant to the post-Cold War context, were transferred to the Military Intelligence Directorate (DRM), a new military agency. Combining the skills and knowledge of five military groups, the DRM was created to close the intelligence gaps of the 1991 Gulf War.

Cold War-era rivalries

The SDECE and DGSE have been shaken by numerous scandals. In 1968, for example, Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli, who had been an important officer in the French intelligence system for 20 years, asserted in published memoirs that the SDECE had been deeply penetrated by the Soviet KGB in the 1950s. He also indicated that there had been periods of intense rivalry between the French and U.S. intelligence systems. In the early 1990s a senior French intelligence officer created another major scandal by revealing that the DGSE had conducted economic intelligence operations against American businessmen in France.

A major scandal for the service in the late Cold War was the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985. The Rainbow Warrior was sunk by DGSE operatives, unintentionally killing one of the crew. They had set two time-separated explosive charges to encourage evacuation, but photographer Fernando Pereira stayed inside the boat to rescue his expensive cameras and drowned following the second explosion. (See below in this article for more details). The operation was ordered by the French President, François Mitterrand. New Zealand was outraged that its sovereignty was violated by an ally, as was the Netherlands since the killed Greenpeace activist was a Dutch citizen and the ship had Amsterdam as its port of origin.

Political controversies

The agency was conventionally run by French military personnel until 1999, when former diplomat Jean-Claude Cousseran was appointed its head. Cousseran had served as an ambassador to Turkey and Syria, as well as a strategist in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Cousseran reorganized the agency to improve the flow of information, following a series of reforms drafted by Bruno Joubert, the agency's director of strategy at that time.

This came during a period when the French government was formed as a cohabitation between left and right parties. Cousseran, linked to the Socialist Party, was therefore obliged to appoint Jean-Pierre Pochon of the Gaullist RPR as head of the Intelligence Directorate. Being conscious of the political nature of the appointment, and wanting to steer around Pochon, Cousseron placed one of his friends in a top job under Pochon. Alain Chouet, a specialist in terrorism, especially Algerian and Iranian networks, took over as chief of the Security Intelligence Service. He had been on post in Damascus at a time when Cousseran was France's ambassador to Syria. Chouet began writing reports to Cousseran that bypassed his immediate superior, Pochon.

Politics eventually took precedence over DGSE's intelligence function. Instead of informing the president's staff of reports directly concerning President Chirac, Cousseran informed only Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who was going to run against Chirac in the 2002 presidential election. Pochon learned of the maneuvers only in March 2002 and informed Chirac's circle of the episode. He then had a furious argument with Cousseran and was informally told he wasn't wanted around the agency anymore. Pochon nonetheless remained Director of Intelligence, though he no longer turned up for work. He remained "ostracized" until the arrival of a new DGSE director, Pierre Brochand, in August 2002.

Organization

Organizational Structure

The DGSE is made up of various units and divisions including:

Director-General

General Inspectorate Service

Deputy Director-General

Operational Coordination Unit

Administration Department

Human Resources Management Department

Training Department

Purchasing and Finance Department

Real Estate Affairs Department

Operational and Logistical Support Service

General Secretariat for Analysis and Strategy

Research and Operations Directorate

Technical and Innovation Department

Security and Protection Directorate

Divisions

The DGSE includes the following directorates:

Directorate of Intelligence Collection and Operations (DRO)

Technical and Innovated Directorate

Directorate of Administration

The General Secretariat for the Analysis of Strategy

Directorate of Strategy

Directorate of Intelligence

In partnership with the Direction du renseignement militaire, DRM (Directorate of Military Intelligence) and with considerable support from the Army in particular, and from the Air Force and the Navy to lesser extent, the DGSE is responsible for electronic spying abroad. Historically the Ministry of Defence in general has always been much interested in telecommunications interception.

In the early 1880s a partnership between the Post Office (also in charge of all national telegraphic communications) and the Army gave birth to an important military telegraphy unit of more than 600 men; it settled in the Fort of the Mont Valérien near Paris. In 1888, the military settled the first service of telecommunications interception and deciphering in the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris—where it is still active today as an independent intelligence agency secretly created in 1959 under the name Groupement Interministériel de Contrôle or GIC (Inter-ministerial Control Group).

In 1910, the military unit of the Mont Valérien grew up with the creation of a wireless telecommunication station, and three years later it transformed into a regiment of about 1000 men. Anecdotally, government domestic Internet tapping and its best specialists are still located in the same area today (in underground facilities in Taverny and surroundings), though unofficially and not only. At about the same time, the Army and the Navy created several "listening stations" in the region of the Mediterranean Sea, and they began to intercept the coded wireless communications of the British and Spanish navies. It was the first joint use of wireless telegraphy and Cryptanalysis in the search for intelligence of military interest.

Installations

The DGSE headquarters, codenamed CAT (Centre Administratif des Tourelles), are located at 141 Boulevard Mortier in the 20th arrondissement in Paris, approximately 1 km northeast of the Père Lachaise Cemetery. The building is often referred to as La piscine ("the swimming pool") because of the nearby Piscine des Tourelles of the French Swimming Federation.

A project named "Fort 2000" was supposed to allow the DGSE headquarters to be moved to the fort of Noisy-le-Sec, where the Action Division and the Service Technique d'Appui or "STA" (Technical and Support Service) were already stationed. However, the project was often disturbed and interrupted due to lacking funds, which were not granted until the 1994 and 1995 defence budgets. The allowed budget passed from 2 billion francs to one billion, and as the local workers and inhabitants started opposing the project, it was eventually canceled in 1996. The DGSE instead received additional premises located in front of the Piscine des Tourelles, and a new policy called "Privatisation des Services" (Privatization of the Services) was set. Roughly speaking, the Privatization of the Services consists for the DGSE in creating on the French territory numerous private companies of varied sizes, each being used as cover activity for specialized intelligence cells and units. This policy allows to turn round the problem of heavily investing in the building of large and highly secured facilities, and also of public and parliamentary scrutinies. This method is not entirely new however, since in 1945 the DGER, ancestor of the DGSE, owned 123 anonymous buildings, houses and apartments in addition to the military barracks of Boulevard Mortier serving already as headquarters. And this dispersion of premises began very early at the time of the Deuxième Bureau, and more particularly from the 1910s on, when intelligence activities carried on under the responsibility of the military knew a strong and steady rise in France.

French nationals who are voluntary spies

The DGSE also relies on an undisclosed number of voluntary correspondents (spies), who are predominantly French nationals, both within France and abroad, and who are not listed among government civil servants. For many years, these individuals were known by the title "honorable correspondant" (honourable correspondent), or simply "HC." More recently, they have been referred to as "contact" (contact).

By contrast, the DGSE designates as "source" (source) any French or foreign national recruited by the agency, whether as a "conscious and willing" collaborator or as an "unconscious or unwilling" asset (i.e., one who is manipulated). In English-speaking contexts, a DGSE officer specifically trained and dispatched to conduct espionage abroad is generally called an "operative." Within the DGSE, however, such agents are referred to as "agent volant" (flying agent), by analogy with a butterfly rather than a bird. Colloquially, the agency may also refer to a female operative as a "hirondelle" (swallow).

Collectively, the DGSE uses the term "capteurs" (sensors) to refer indiscriminately to its contacts, sources, and flying agents.

Budget

The DGSE's budget is entirely official (it is voted upon and accepted by the French parliament). It generally consists of about €500M, in addition to which are added special funds from the Prime Minister (often used in order to finance certain operations of the Action Division). How these special funds are spent has always been kept secret.

Some known yearly budgets include:

1991: FRF 0.9bn

1992: FRF 1bn

1997: FRF 1.36bn

1998: FRF 1.29bn

2007: EUR 450 million, plus 36 million in special funds.

2009: EUR 543.8 million, plus 48.9 million in special funds.

According to Claude Silberzahn, one of its former directors, the agency's budget is divided in the following manner:

25% for military intelligence

25% for economic intelligence

50% for diplomatic intelligence

Directors

Pierre Marion (17 June 1981 – 10 November 1982)

Adm. Pierre Lacoste (10 November 1982 – 19 September 1985)

Gen. René Imbot (20 September 1985 – 1 December 1987)

Gen. François Mermet (2 December 1987 – 23 March 1989)

Claude Silberzahn (23 March 1989 – 7 June 1993)

Jacques Dewatre (7 June 1993 – 19 December 1999)

Jean-Claude Cousseran (19 December 1999 – 24 July 2002)

Pierre Brochand (24 July 2002 – 10 October 2008)

Erard Corbin de Mangoux (10 October 2008 – 10 April 2013)

Bernard Bajolet (10 April 2013 – 27 April 2017)

Jean-Pierre Palasset (interim) (27 April 2017 – 26 June 2017)

Bernard Émié (26 June 2017 – 8 January 2024)

Nicolas Lerner (9 January 2024 – present)

Logo

As of 18 July 2012 the organisation had inaugurated its current logo. The bird of prey represents the sovereignty, operational capacities, international operational nature, and the efficiency of the DGSE. France is depicted as a sanctuary in the logo. The lines depict the networks utilized by the DGSE.

Activities

Range

Various tasks and roles are generally appointed to the DGSE:

Intelligence gathering:

HUMINT, internally called "ROHUM," which stands for Renseignement d'Origine Humaine (Intelligence of Human Origin), is carried on by a large network of agents and under-agents, contacts, and sources who are not directly and officially paid by the DGSE in a large majority of instances and by reason of secrecy, but by varied public services and private companies which are not all necessarily cover-ups by vocation however, and which thus cooperate through particular and unofficial agreements. But many under-agents, contacts and sources act out of patriotism and political/ideological motives, and they are not all aware to help an intelligence agency.

SIGINT (COMINT/SIGINT/ELINT), internally called "ROEM," which stands for Renseignement d'Origine Electromagnétique (Intelligence of Electromagnetic Origin), is carried on from France and from a network of COMINT stations overseas, each internally called Centre de Renseignement Électronique, CRE (Electronic Intelligence Center). And then two other names are used to name: smaller COMINT/SIGINT territorial or oversea stations, internally called Détachement Avancé de Transmission, CAT (Signal Detachment Overseas); and specifically ELINT and SIGINT stations indifferently located on the French soil and overseas, each called Centre de Télémesure Militaire, CTM (Military Telemetry Center). Since the 1980s, the DGSE focuses much of its efforts and financial expenditures in communications interception (COMINT) abroad, which today (2018) has a reach extending from the east coast of the United States to Japan, with a focus on the Arabian Peninsula between these two opposite areas. In the DGSE in particular, those considerable and very expensive COMINT capacities are under the official responsibility of its Direction Technique, DT, (Technical Directorate). But as these capacities are rapidly growing and passively involve about all other French intelligence agencies (more than 20) in the context of a new policy called Mutualisation du Renseignement (Intelligence pooling between agencies) officially decreed in 2016, the whole of it is called Pôle National de Cryptanalyse et de Décryptement, PNCD (National Branch of Cryptanalysis and Decryption) since the early 2000s at least. Earlier and from 1987 to 1990 on in particular, the PNCD was called Centre de Transmission et de Traitement de l'Information, CTTI (Transmission and Information Processing Center), and its main center is secretly located underground the Taverny Air Base, in the eastern Paris' suburb. Otherwise, the French press nicknamed the French COMINT capacities and network Frenchlon, borrowing to ECHELON, its U.S. equivalent.

Known operations

Under the codename "Operation Caban", the SDECE staged a coup d'état against Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa in the Central African Empire in September 1979, and installed a pro-French government.

Between the early 1970s and the late 1980s, the SDECE/DGSE had effectively planted agents in major U.S. companies, such as Texas Instruments, IBM and Corning. Some of the economic intelligence thus acquired was shared with French corporations, such as the Compagnie des Machines Bull.

Working with the DST in the early 1980s, the agency exploited the source "Farewell", revealing the most extensive technological spy network uncovered in Europe and the United States to date. This network had allowed the United States and other European countries to gather significant amounts of information about important technical advances in the Soviet Union without the knowledge of the KGB. However, former DGSE employee Dominique Poirier contends, in his book he self-published in May 2018, that KGB Lt-Colonel Vladimir Vetrov code-named "Farewell" could not possibly reveal, alone, the names of 250 KGB officers acting abroad undercover, and help identify nearly 100 Soviet spies in varied western countries, at least by reason of the rule of "compartmentalization" or need to know.

The DGSE exploited a network called "Nicobar", which facilitated the sale of forty-three Mirage 2000 fighter jets by French defence companies to India for a total of more than US$2 billion, and the acquisition of information about the type of the armour used on Soviet T-72 tanks.

Operation Satanique, a mission aimed at preventing protests by Greenpeace against French nuclear testing in the Pacific through the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, New Zealand, on 10 July 1985. A French navy limpet mine exploded at 11:38 pm when many of the crew were asleep, and blew a large hole in the ship's hull. A second limpet mine exploded on the propeller shaft when Fernando Pereira, ships photographer, returned to retrieve his camera equipment, he was trapped in his cabin and drowned. New Zealand Police initiated one of their country's largest investigations and uncovered the plot after they captured two DGSE agents, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and arson. French relations with New Zealand were sorely strained, as they threatened New Zealand with EEC sanctions in an attempt to secure the agents' release. Australia also attempted to arrest DGSE agents to extradite them. The incident is still widely remembered in New Zealand. The uncovering of the operation resulted in the firing of the head of the DGSE and the resignation of the French Defence Minister.

In popular culture

The DGSE has been referenced in the following media:

In the video game James Bond 007: Nightfire (2002) James Bond works alongside operative Dominique Paradis.

The Bureau (2015–2020), Canal+ television series about the lives of DGSE agents.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the villain character of Georges Batroc (appearing in both Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) was an agent of the DGSE, Action Division, before being demobilized, although he is of Algerian descent, not French.

Secret Defense (2008 film)

Secret Agents (2004 film)

Godzilla (1998), a film which features Jean Reno as a DGSE agent in a major role.

The Night Agent, a television series which features the DGSE in season two episode 6

A Very Secret Service (2015-2018) a sitcom starring Hugo Becker as André Merlaux as an agent of the DSGE during the Cold War.