Overview

For long, French made for themselves a discreet notoriety as very active spies with a penchant for deceit with their allies, and for stern discipline and deadly violence against their owns. Since the late 1970's, the activities of the French intelligence community knew a steady and unprecedented increase, especially against the United States of America and its closest allies. This challenged the beliefs and expectations of many, including the French public since France always claimed to be an American ally. Why this odd discrepancy? The author of this book explains it all, as he provides an extensive description of the French intelligence community, with a focus on its foreign intelligence agency the DGSE. For he voluntarily enlisted in the SDECE in the early months of 1980, two years before this agency changed its name for DGSE. He quitted abruptly in the early 2000s for personal reasons, ten years after he was called to work in influence against the United States of America, with a specialty in the computer industry. Prior this experience he worked in domestic influence. The reader will not find in this book an account of the personal experience of its author, but an essay filled with descriptions, abundant technical explanations, and anecdotes and short stories revealed for the first time. The whole is completed with a chapter presenting the evolution of the French intelligence community since the First French Empire. And with explanations exposing the reality of the special relationship between France and Russia, which really began at the turn of the 1950s. They make for an indispensable information for those who want to understand the complex motives underlying French politics today.

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9781984922175

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Dominique Poirier, the author grew up in a family whose members were involved in intelligence since the WWII. His stepfather was a high-ranking executive in domestic intelligence (the Renseignements Generaux). His elder brother was recruited in domestic intelligence in the 1960s, and he was steered towards counterespionage in the mid-1970s, a branch in which he immediately specialized in operations against Britain and the United States. Dominique Poirier joined the DGSE when this intelligence agency still was called SDECE, one year before the Socialist Party took the power in France, and ten year before the end of the Cold War. A few years later, the DGSE steered him towards influence and cultural warfare, a then growing branch of the whole French intelligence community. From the early 1990s on, he was increasingly involved in intelligence activities against the United States, with a specialty in influence and propaganda, and he was introduced to join intelligence operations between the DGSE and its German counterpart the BND. From 1996 on, he was progressively enlightened on the intricacies of the special relationship between France and Russia, and he began to meet agents and intelligence officers of the SVR RF, the foreign intelligence agency of the Russian Federation that succeeded the KGB.

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