France’s “James Bonds” reveal their secrets: They don’t drink martinis or drive Aston Martins, but they have gorgeous lovers

A 90-minute television documentary has fascinated the French on France 2. It chronicles the investigations, methodologies, adventures and traps of the Directorate General of External Security (DGSE), the French version of a secret foreign counter-espionage service.

At the DGSE, the French secret service, nothing is more important than discretion. However, for the first time in its history, a television crew was able to be present for several weeks.

Behind the scenes

Officers from all services spoke about their motivations. They told how engineers, soldiers, students, linguists and publishers became “secret agents” of France, through demanding training.

Furthermore, for the first time everyone was allowed to explain their statements two types of missions: the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the search for those responsible for a jihadist attack in Mauritania in 2007.

In the confessions of the agents’ methodologies it became evident that one of the favorite tactics of Russian intelligence is to obtain information it doesn’t work with them: “the honey trap” or as the English call it honey trap.

Love affairs? “My wife knows”

The Russians came to the conclusion that there was no point in trying to trap and pressure their French colleagues who had “business” with gorgeous blondes. The response of the French surprised them: “Forward. “My wife already knows.”

An agent with a distorted voice, who called himself Nicolás, said that “the defectors from the Soviet Union talked about the “French paradox”. Especially if they caught a Frenchman with a lover, saying: “We found you red-handed, with a 22-year-old girl named Tatyana. “She works for us or we will tell your wife,” she didn’t work.

“That’s because the agent usually responded, ‘Go ahead and show it.’ He will understand” or “He already knows,” Nicolas said.

The example was to show “motives” with French intelligence, known in the espionage rules as MICE (Money, ideology, compromise, ego /or money, ideology, commitment and ego)

I’m not James Bond

But French agents believe they are far from the image of James Bond, therefore British and a model for MI6, the kingdom’s counter-espionage service. They don’t drink Vodka Martinis They don’t drive Aston Martins or kill in spectacular settings and in tuxedos.

The DGSE is made up of “ordinary people doing extraordinary things with exceptional means”according to Bernard Emie, head of French intelligence until December 2023.

Emie vigorously defended accusations that France was “napping” when Russian troops deployed to the Ukrainian border in February 2022.

“When Russia launched the war in Ukraine, the DGSE had the same information technology as its American partners. The problem is how information is exploited and analyzed and how one thinks whether an event will happen or not,” she explained.

Analyzing the war in Iraq, in which French President Jacques Chirac refused to participate, French agents claimed that “the Anglo-Saxons mixed images of carpets rolled up in a factory and oil pipes equipped with missiles” to discuss weapons of mass destruction.

They revealed that the British and the Americans “They spend more money to get leads.”

A double life

An officer explained that she He led a “double life”with a business with employees and customers and with a second mission of obtaining information through that business.

Another problem is the connection between their role as secret agents and their families: “They learn not to ask.”

“It’s not James Bond. Most of the secret agents of the DGSE They are hidden in embassies. In general, we rely more on subtlety, discretion and rigorous management of communications than on a Glock pistol,” one of them said.