Paris, secrets d’espions

Depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, Paris s’est imposée comme un épicentre de l’espionnage mondial. Entre 10 000 et 15 000 agents étrangers y opèrent en toute discrétion, venus de Russie, de Chine, des États-Unis, d’Israël ou encore de Turquie. Une guerre silencieuse se joue dans les coulisses du pouvoir : institutions, hôtels de luxe, ambassades… tous les terrains sont bons pour manipuler, corrompre, séduire ou éliminer.

Paris, Secrets d’Espions
Par Nicolas Bourgouin, Amandine Stelletta

02:12 Repère d’espions
34:40 Permis de chasse à Paris
46:30 Les méthodes

An Algerian, Mr. Mohamed Moudia, was killed today in Paris in the explosion of his car. Arab circles in Paris believe that the explosion of his car is part of the attacks launched by the Socranian services. The investigation will have to determine this, But it looks very much like an execution. Three Kurdish activists were found dead last night in the bankrupt, in the second arrondissement, shot dead in the… Few people know this, But Paris has always been the hidden playground of spies from all over the world. She would even be, since the end of 19th century, the world capital of espionage. It is said to house between 10,000 and 15,000 secret agents. The senior official of the Senate, Benoît Kennedy, who had been taken into custody for spying for North Korea, was indicted. This is a betrayal. The Chinese artist, as well as the attaché of the French Embassy in Beijing, accused of delivering secret documents to China, Both were sentenced to six years of criminal oracle. The Americans, the Russians, but also the Chinese, Israelis and Turks are the most active there. We know their method. Listen, infiltration, elimination and attempted compromise. The CIA office in Paris was very interested. To France’s economic and commercial policy. And these agents did not hesitate to try to recruit senior French officials. You will never see Paris the same way again. Its boulevards, its hotels, its restaurants. The stories I’m going to tell you are worthy of the greatest spy films or novels. Yet they are all very real. You have to have a good eye or be well informed to know where to find spies in Paris. One of them agreed to tell me about his job, its missions, his blows, stuffed. He had been sent to Paris by the KGB, the secret services of the Soviet Union. It was at the end of the Cold War. Today, The former spy feels freed from his duty of reserve. No qualms about tackling Vladimir Putin and the power in place. There is also no reluctance to reveal where and how Russian spies are operating in the heart of Paris today. And it starts on the Alma bridge. A good distance from the Russian Orthodox Cultural and Spiritual Center, inaugurated with great fanfare in October 2016, then visited by Vladimir Putin in May 2017. For the Putin regime, It was also a political and geopolitical issue to say that they succeeded in establishing a center truly alongside the symbols of France, which is the Eiffel Tower, which is one of the most visited monuments in the world and in France. In addition, this church. Is geographically located next to a building which is to its right, which is an annex of the Élysée. You have apartments, senior officials who work around the President of the Republic. Perhaps it was a risk that could have been avoided to have a quasi-official Russian building side by side with housing. These are just accommodations, but finally, This is where the President of the Republic’s staff are housed. Members of Emmanuel Macron’s private staff, having access to sensitive information, are therefore housed in this ALMA palace, which affects the cathedral and the Russian Orthodox Cultural Center. In the intelligence community, This hyper-proximity raises questions. Nothing says that the outline of this bulb does not hide an antenna for listening, Among others, already, the annex of the Élysée, which is next door. I would be very curious. I think if we did a little inspection, we don’t have the right to do it. Because we’re not at home. And I’d be surprised if there wasn’t anything. Obviously it must be useful for Russian intelligence, one way or another, Either to place undercover case officers there, or perhaps to place listening elements there. There’s no way it’s not. It’s always difficult to be certain when we talk about espionage. The Russians will never admit to having placed antennas under the domes of the Orthodox church. On the other hand, we know very well how they are organized. That’s already something. There are two major services. The SVR, the ex-KGB in fact, who deals with foreign intelligence and political issues, economic and scientific. And then there is the GROU. Which depends on the Ministry of Defense, the Russian intelligence arm, so to speak. In Paris, These two services are offices, not very difficult to find. You have to take the Boulevards des Maréchaux, a stone’s throw from Porte-Maillot in the west of Paris. There is the embassy, with a large Soviet concrete bunker, very Soviet. This is the main place of official Russian spies, because this is the main place where they work under diplomatic immunity. It is a Russian enclave in the heart of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, which officially houses embassy attachés, but unofficially intelligence agents. There, you see the exterior facade, but actually it’s a big square. And you have the Inner Courtyard. And in this inner courtyard, the upper floors, it is the residentura, It’s the SFR antenna. We can estimate that the SFR antenna, it’s between 50 and 80 people, maybe 100. And the cube that is at the top, This is the cover for the antennas. This is where the real ears of the Russian embassy are hidden. So, there, It is the ears that allow them to listen. Not only the whole neighborhood, but all of Paris, even the Île de France and Houdelon. And not only to listen, but also to transmit. The Russians have always been there to carry out political espionage, know what kings, the French emperors or the presidents of the French Republic had in mind. But the Russians have also long since, since at least the 19th century, conducts economic intelligence, particularly in the military field. To uncover the secrets of current or future weaponry. Between Paris and Moscow, The shadow war has never stopped. The latest case dates back to December 2020. French authorities expel Valentin Vladimirovich Zakharov, a diplomat from the economic mission of the Russian embassy. Counterintelligence catches him red-handed handing over funds as part of a French technology company specializing in artificial intelligence. Moscow retaliates and expels a French diplomat in turn. How many Russian agents are there in Paris? Of official agents, that is to say declared. Even this information is not made public, But there are, by definition, a certain number of Russian agents in Paris. And in France, who are illegal agents, that is to say, who have not been declared by their embassy and who carry out operations of various kinds in France. Sergei Girnoff belonged to this second category. His assignment, the department S, the riskiest, the least known, that of illegals. What are illegals? These are men and women who have been prepared, but whose destiny is to blend into society. A false identity, a false cover activity, without having any official contact with the embassy or the officers of the special services. The former illegal spy arrived in France almost 30 years ago, in the middle of the Cold War. Today, He says he is threatened by the Russian secret services for treason. They consider me a traitor. But at the same time, They have no basis for this. Because me, I didn’t betray anyone. There is my service that has disappeared, there is the party that disappeared, There is the Soviet Union which has disappeared. Who am I betraying? And I signed my solemn commitment, It is to defend the Communist Party to the limit. I should be fighting Putin right now, because he is a traitor, He is a capitalist who carried out a coup d’état. If Russia can no longer count on Sergei Girnov today, Dozens of other spies replaced him in Paris. And every day, these invisible things blend into our daily lives. Every Parisian was able to, without realizing it, be in the middle of an operation. .in. A restaurant, the table next door or two tables away. There may be two or three or four people who are talking in a way, it seems, harmless, But it can be an operation, either of recruiting a source, either delivery of documents, But all this, in a way that is completely impossible for the average kiname to detect, But walking down the street, You can be in the middle of a surveillance operation or a counter-surveillance operation without realizing it. So, indeed, Parisians live in a world of espionage, often without knowing it and fortunately without even noticing. If the Parisians don’t see anything wrong with it, counterintelligence, him, identifies and tracks down its enemy agents operating in the capital. In December 2014, Our agents from the General Directorate of Internal Security are monitoring a Russian spy and a French weapons engineer. A very sensitive matter. He is a gentleman who works for one of the largest French military companies. So, very quickly, we imagine that we are angry with our technology or our… To our know-how. The Russian agent was dropped off at Place Saint-Sulpice in the 6th arrondissement, then heads towards Saint-Germain-des-Prés, because this district offers a maze of alleys ideal for foiling a surveillance operation. Russian agents, They know that there is not a single person who will follow him, but it will be a good dozen agents. Men, women, young people, old. The game of cat and mouse, they know him very, very well, on both sides. Here, you just don’t want to get caught. After several hours of walking, The Russian spy’s landing point is in sight. The Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. And there, The French services have planned everything. A couple of agents are already installed inside, who plays the role of a love tourist, who takes pictures. French intelligence men know in advance that these numerous Parisian churches, accessible to all, are appreciated for discreet encounters. The Russian sits in the front row on the wooden chairs. Facing the hotel, The Frenchman comes to sit next to him. There is almost no exchange. There is just an envelope that passes from one hand to the other. They machine-gunned them. They have 14,000 photos of the hand, of what is on the hand, of the costume, of what is in the envelope, the complexion. It’s very impressive. And the two left again, each on their own. One gets on a bus, the other jumped into a taxi and disappeared into traffic. And that’s it. The report and photos of this exchange, between the Russian spy and the French weapons engineer, were forwarded to the military intelligence directorate. With its two airports, its seven large stations, department stores, historic and tourist districts, and more surprisingly, cemeteries, The French capital offers an ideal playground for foreign secret agents. You often forget it, But Paris is the city with the most metro stations in the world. Hundreds and hundreds of subway stations, sometimes which are nodes in themselves of connection with multiple outputs. And then there are a lot of… Passing through, around forty passages. SO, Paris, in fact, provides facilities for educational services. One of the peculiarities of Paris, and that very little capital has, is to welcome spies of all kinds. Like this institution located at 7 places, Fontenoy, in the 7th arrondissement. This is UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Agency for Education, science and culture. The organization hosts hundreds of diplomats of all nationalities, NGOs and visiting speakers. If we had to choose a spy nest in Paris, That’s it. Because there, You have at least 182 permanent delegations of countries to UNESCO. The spies, like the United Nations in New York, like the Palais des Nations in Geneva, like the United Nations in Vienna, are used by spies around the world as cover for espionage services. They all rub shoulders, there are lots of spies in it, and they all know who the spies are, more or less. At the same time, for the French, it’s also convenient, because all the spies are there. As a result, They placed cameras everywhere. There are military passes already in front, so there are all the premises that can allow it. After, there are the buildings around. There are certainly some apartments that are also rented by the French occult services to observe all these people. And so, here it is, everyone is here. Everyone knows there are plenty of spies, but it doesn’t bother anyone. Actually, everything is fine. It’s a very friendly little world. In addition to UNESCO, There are 157 embassies in Paris. So many nests, so many spies, so many foreign enclaves in the heart of our capital, where each country can do what it wants, as he wants. We assume that everyone spies, everyone, with, of course, significant differences in means and above all also differences in objectives. So it doesn’t shock anyone, it’s accepted. So this may shock some politicians who do not know what intelligence is, but in services, It is accepted by everyone. It is a real secret of polychinelle where, a priori, The rules of the game are clear. No twisted blows were to occur between the allied or friendly services, a fortiori. And the counterpart, It was the franchise. These are moral rules, in Paris, Curious, that must not be transgressed. But in the world of espionage, perhaps more than elsewhere, Promises are only binding on those who believe in them. This is how in 2005, a stone’s throw from Place de la Concorde and the Elysée Palace, our great American friends, a bit like the Russians, They allowed themselves some adjustments on the roof of their embassy, wing-shaped. A superb tarpaulin, beautifully decorated with eye-catching paint, who would hide, apparently, a highly sophisticated listening system. So no one went to see the antennas. Nobody knows anything about it, but there are strong probabilities, a bundle of clues sufficiently consistent to allow us to think that indeed on the roof of the American embassy, There is a listening system. It’s true that the American embassy has antennas on the roof, under the tarpaulin and outside the tarpaulin, And that it is just a stone’s throw from the Élysée. But no system is truly infallible. Sometimes in the intelligence world someone spills the beans, tell. It’s 2013. A manager of the Electronic Surveillance Agency, the NSA, recently made some shocking revelations. The United States has established a widespread spying program across the world, phone, Internet, social networks. This evening, Europe raises its voice and demands explanations. This frame is called Edward Snowden. I want to say that Snowden should be given a medal, even if it will make Americans’ hair stand on end, But he revealed a lot of things that were… Very useful, But we are not at all surprised. This gives some information on the scale, the systematism and type of programs that were put in place by the NSA. In these classified notes revealed by Snowden, we learn that the personal telephones of Messrs Chirac, Sarkozy and Hollande were spied on. Just that. Everyone is outraged. Everyone is crying scandal. There are behaviors and practices that cannot be accepted. When, at a certain level, and with this magnitude, surveillance is carried out, in this case by the American services, There is a need to stop this and there are clarifications to be demanded. A necessary posture Maybe. A posture above all. Our policies are regularly updated, generation after generation, by the competent services. They hold… Little or no matter. And, of course, They could not help but react minimally. Finding it scandalous that we listen to Angela Merkel, that we find scandalous, that we listen to the French president. But they know it. They do not always take the necessary precautions. So, no, We are in a fool’s game. And to make the pill easier to swallow, The American president swore he would never do it again. When we tell you that promises are only binding on those who believe in them. The statements of a president like Obama? When the wiretapping was revealed, he said, “I asked my services not to do it anymore.” This is pure diplomatic display. And nobody believes it, and of course, Listening is still just as important. Especially since if we don’t listen to our allies, we have surprises. If embassies are spy havens, There are many other strategic locations in Paris. You probably don’t know this, But hotels can be a second office for an intelligence service. And in the city, which remains the most popular tourist destination in the world, the hotel park offers many opportunities. Effectively, more and more foreign heads of state are staying in hotels who no longer reside in their embassies, ministers, opponents of undemocratic regimes, large industrialists. So the hotels… Yes, Hotels in Paris are very active branches of the world of espionage. And the French secret services are not to be outdone. There is even a band called Hotel, with specialized agents within the DGSE. There may be honorable correspondents, either hotel managers, either people who have positions of responsibility in these hotels, which can offer facilities. To access the rooms, and then who can cover the activity of the spies who are there, Perhaps even temporarily offer a position as a waiter or head waiter or chambermaid. It can be very, very valuable. Parisian palaces are not immune to the stories of Barbouze. Each to his own. The Lutetia, the Meurice, the Claridge, the Crillon or the Ritz. Let’s take a look at this prestigious hotel located at 15 Place Vendôme, in the first arrondissement. The former headquarters of German espionage during the occupation. It was while leaving this palace, in October 1979, that a former director of South Korean intelligence, became an opponent exiled in the United States, got kidnapped. He was murdered by henchmen from his former agency, then ended up in the shredder of a chicken farm in the Paris region. In the world of espionage, in Paris as elsewhere, It’s always dangerous to betray your country. Even when you leave the Ritz. Much more recently, it’s the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, who carried out an incredible operation using Paris as a rear base. The scene takes place in January 2010. A team of several men moved into this hotel located on Quai d’Osterlitz. We are in a hotel which is almost opposite the Ministry of Finance, but on the other side of the Seine. And in fact, on a high floor, In one of the rooms, there are several people belonging to Mossad, with computers, with encrypted phones. And what no one knows at that time, This is the operational headquarters of an assassination operation. Their target, a Palestinian military leader, Mahmoud al-Mabou. Mahmoud al-Mabou, who is a senior Hamas official, a Palestinian Islamist movement, He is responsible in particular for the purchase of weapons, But he is also one of the military leaders of the movement, so one of the Mossad’s targets. How do you decide on targeted killings or targeted assassinations? There is a bank. Targets that are actually approved by the Prime Minister and this target bank. It will be either the Shin Bet that will take care of it, so the internal intelligence, either the army, or the Mossad. We take signs, despite the fact that it must be emphasized that the deficits are 0.001% of the Mossad function. Deficits are not a formless thing, deficits are a mafia job. You only run into a deficit when you don’t have a decision and only when you come to the decision that… The Mossad has been hunting this enemy for years and wants to eliminate him. They have already tried to eliminate this Hamas cadre. They missed it once, there is a move that has not taken place. And they have the information, no doubt with undercover agents, of the travel of this person under a false name to Dubai. This mission, orchestrated from Paris, will take place more than 5,000 kilometers away, in Dubai. In Dubai? The Emirates intelligence services are intelligence services with real skills. And so the Israelis could fear, if they were conducting this operation from their own country, that it could be more easily detected that an operation was being set up or was taking place. In total, 26 Israeli agents are mobilized. Dubai police were able to reconstruct the course of the operation afterward. She collected images from 47 CCTV cameras into a single film. From the airport to the shopping center, parking lots in the palace lobby, from its elevators to the corridor, All the sequences of this programmed death were captured. How many were there to pilot the operation in Paris? No images have leaked from the command post, unlike the City of the United Arab Emirates. As Dubai is a city completely gridded by camera systems, they will undertake. A video research work, of tracing each person’s movements, identification of the members of the commando, the reconstruction of the entire operation. It’s still strange that an intelligence service so… It’s a shame that the Mossad could have overlooked the presence of all these cameras. In the intelligence community, it could pass for amateurism, but maybe not so much. There are two cases. Or we consider that the Israelis knew that they were going to operate during the entire operation under the cameras, and so they knew it would probably be revealed. It’s also a way to get a message across. It’s a way of saying, listen, despite the cameras, despite the means of surveillance, We are able to find you, to eliminate you. And too bad if it comes out. Either he didn’t know there were cameras, And there, we can consider that it is a failure. I have trouble knowing which of the two versions is true. I would tend to lean towards the first. The operation begins in the arrival hall of Dubai Airport. Circled in red, They are Mossad agents. They come from all over the world. All of them have fake passports, some of which are stamped. “French Republic”. Israeli services have produced excellent fake passports based on real identities. And they chose nationalities, especially European ones. So you have British people, Irish people, French people. You also have Australians. So, there, we are leaving Europe. And as for France, You have four Commando members who carry French passports. There, with a cap, It’s a member of the commando who pretends to be making a phone call. He is waiting for the target who has just landed. Mahmoud al-Mabou leaves the airport. From now on, The Israelis will not let go of him. It is 3:25 p.m. when the Palestinian military leader arrives at the hotel. On his heels, two Mossad agents disguised as tennis players. Five minutes later, Mahmoud al-Mabou goes up to his room. And there, The two fake Mossad tennis players follow him to take the same elevator as him. They want to locate the floor and the number of his room. At HQ, in Paris, the phone rings. A brief conversation to give the room number. The room, 230. All these calls were routed through Austria and actually ended up in Paris in this hotel room. So, whatever was emergency number, everything that was a bit of emergency management of everyone’s movements, was managed from Paris. When they learned at 4:23 p.m. that Mahmoud Al Mabou was leaving his hotel to go shopping, The Paris-based team orders two of their agents on site to take action. There’s this woman with long hair and this man wearing big glasses. Thanks to the airport’s surveillance cameras, Authorities have recovered footage of their arrival in Dubai. But on these plans, they don’t really look the same. The man with glasses, For example. Well, initially, he was bald. Cameras caught them changing in a hotel bathroom. It is thus transformed that they enter the target’s palace and return to their room just opposite the 230. The noose is tightening. The execution team, four men, enters the palace. The first two, hand in pockets, followed by the other two, bag on the shoulder. Everyone rushes to room 237. The two wigged officers are on watch upstairs. Off camera, A team attempts to enter the target’s room before they return. Issue A hotel guest appears. We must restrain him and create a diversion so that he does not raise the alarm. Afterwards, everything will go very quickly. At 8:24 p.m., Mahmoud Al Mabou returns to his hotel room. Two members of the Commando are still monitoring the elevator exit upstairs. They meet the Hamas officer on the landing. In Paris, The leaders of this operation give the order to proceed with the elimination. 22 minutes later, The four Commando killers rush out of the hotel, followed by the rest of the team, including the two wigged members, where the Mossad members will leave Dubai without being disturbed and disperse that same evening to the four corners of the planet. At 1:30 p.m., the day after, The victim was found dead in his bedroom. These images are circulating around the world and some countries are reacting firmly against Israel. Those whose nationality Mossad agents usurped for their fake passports. The English, For example, send back an Israeli diplomat. In France, This story has been talked about much less. In any case, nothing has been officially released. What it says about Paris, it’s not necessarily flattering, since it mainly says that our intelligence services are considered at best permissive, at worst, incompetent. This is what it says. And that, This is still a fairly widespread perception in Israel. We may have protested less than others, it’s certain, but… We have protested less officially, We don’t know what happened in the shadows. Because this kind of situation is also interesting, This allows you to ask for compensation from your opponent. Finally, to the adversary or to the ally, in this case with the Israelis, saying “Wait, there, you’ve gone too far. Either we will ban you from operating here in the coming months or years, either, On the other hand, We need information on such and such a subject, you, we pass them on.” Everything is negotiable. How far is French counterintelligence prepared to go in its permissiveness? If the French capital has the reputation of being the symbol of human rights, a welcoming land for political refugees? It is also sometimes their last land of asylum. In its history, Paris has often been the scene of bloody score-settling, operated by foreign secret services. For over 50 years, there is no shortage of business. At the corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue de Rennes, October 29, 1965, Moroccan secret services reportedly kidnapped Mehdi Ben Barka, socialist opponent of King Hassan II. His body was never found. 56 years later, The case remains unsolved. Street of the Ditches, Saint-Bernard, in the 5th arrondissement. On June 28, 1973, It was the Mossad who allegedly assassinated Mohamed Boudia, fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause. This accident or attack, The results of the investigation will determine this, enters the cold struggle of the secret services. Arab circles in Paris believe that the explosion of his car is part of the process. Attacks triggered by the Israeli secret services. And which already cost the lives in January of Fata representatives in France and, in April, to a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who was passing through Paris. It is at 74, boulevard Saint-Michel in the 5th arrondissement, April 7, 1987, that the Algerian secret services had executed Ali André Messili, lawyer at the Paris Bar and leader of the Algerian opposition in France. None of these cases have been resolved. No foreign secret service, or the country on which it depends, was not prosecuted, let alone convicted. Allowed himself to kill, even today, some countries only granted in Paris. The most recent case involves Turkey and its secret services, MIT. We know that the MIT operates in any case with complete freedom on French territory, that he can carry out surveillance. MIT enjoys a certain goodwill from the French authorities, In any case, He turns a blind eye to many things. 147, rue Lafayette, in the 10th arrondissement. On January 9, 2013, Three PKK activists, the Kurdish Workers’ Party, are murdered. Three bodies, three women, all shot in the head with automatic weapons. When the police evacuate their remains, It is the entire Kurdish community of Paris that expresses its despair. The PKK has been fighting the Turkish government for autonomy in Kurdistan since the late 1970s. Although classified as a terrorist organization by the European Union and France since 1993, The PKK has offices in the heart of Paris. The three bodies were found on the first floor of the Kurdistan Information Center on Lafayette Street. Sakine Kansiz, 55 years old, was a political refugee in France. She was a founding member of the PKK. Fidan Dogan, 29 years old, was nicknamed the ambassador. She was the one who carried the Kurdish voice to French and European institutions. Finally, Leila Salemeh, 25 years old, represented the youth within the PKK. They were all legally resident in Europe. That, it’s important. Because… Anyway, be legally resident in Europe, It makes sense to me. And that means we should protect them. And it didn’t. The matter is being taken very seriously by the French authorities. The same day, Manuel Valls, Minister of the Interior, goes to the scene of the crime. Rest assured of the determination of the French authorities to shed light on this act. The investigation has been entrusted to the criminal brigade and the anti-terrorism sub-directorate. And very quickly, The Turkish track is confirmed. Twelve days after this triple assassination, The Paris prosecutor gives an update on the investigation to the press. Investigators were going to focus on tracing the victims’ routes and schedules in Paris, and on trying to locate a fourth person. Why a fourth person? Quite simply, because the police had noticed that four glasses were in the kitchen sink of the apartment on rue Lafayette. This fourth person would quickly be identified as the named one. Omer Gunay, driver and escort, appointed by the organization to accompany and assist Sakine Kanziz during her stay in Paris. Omer Gunay, 34 years old, had joined the Kurdish community in Paris two years earlier, pretending to be one of their own. The investigation will reveal that he was not Kurdish, but Turkish, an ultra-nationalist fighting against the PKK. He even managed to become Sakine Kanciz’s private driver, founder of the Kurdish Workers’ Party. It’s a real infiltration operation, by a secret service, well done, well organized. We had the signing of the role of the Turks, Turkish services. Because when he was taken into custody, as you know, he is asked if he wants a lawyer, a doctor, etc. And he is asked if he wants the police to inform anyone. And he said yes, the Turkish consulate. And there, In case we still have any doubts, they were definitely up. What a Kurd, or close to the Kurds, will ask during his arrest that the Turks be informed? It’s inconceivable. It’s just inconceivable. The investigating judges will receive help that is as unexpected as it is unhoped for. Irrefutable evidence that confirms the myth’s implication, Turkish secret services. They will be helped by the Turkish press. And that, It’s something unbelievable. The Turkish press will release pieces, but essential, essential in this matter, which will point out the links between… Guney and the Turkish secret services. Among these pieces transmitted by Turkish journalists, a recording in which the voice of Omer Guney is identified. He speaks to two Turkish secret agents and explains to them how he obtained the murder weapons. I got in touch with someone. I told him I needed two guns. I also asked for a silencer, three magazines and five boxes of 9mm ammunition. That’s what was needed for the operation, the assassination I was going to carry out. This is what I felt was necessary for me. And to top it all off, if I may say so, We have a mission order that comes from the myth, which is signed by four leaders of the myth, recognized as such. During the last visit of our source to our country, to meet us, He was ordered to prepare against the people of the previously determined and targeted organization in Europe. Any attack activity, sabotage or attack. I say, what more do we want In view of all these elements, A trial is scheduled before the Paris Assize Court in January 2017. For the first time in a case of political crime, The public prosecutor accuses a foreign secret service. Many elements of the procedure allow us to suspect the involvement of myth in the instigation and preparation of the assassinations. Indeed, It has been established that Omer Gunay had proven espionage activity, that he had numerous secret contacts with one or more individuals located in Türkiye. In none of the political assassination cases that I know of, I don’t claim to know them all, but I know a number of them anyway, The murderous state has never been designated in a judicial act. But the trial will not take place. Because on December 17, 2016, Homer Gunnet died of a brain tumor at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. With this disappearance, Will the case be closed, like many others? Not so sure. A second complaint was filed by the victims’ families to prosecute the instigators. It led to the opening of a judicial investigation in May 2019. The hope of families, That’s it. Let us put whose name the crime is. From Turkey. Designate Turkey, This greatly embarrasses the French political power. As proof, the French secret services had a file on the alleged murderer, But when the judicial authority requested a copy, a commission obstructed it. That’s how, replies the investigating judge. That, This is what we obtained from the investigating judge. It’s called redaction. If they don’t want to hide anything, It’s badly done. On January 5, 2018, 5 years after the triple murder of Kurdish activists, Emmanuel Macron receives Turkish President Erdogan in Paris with great pomp. Obviously, between the Turks and the Kurds, France. At that time, it would have chosen its side. A question of circumstances. Turkey is still a pillar of NATO, which is a major geostrategic ally of the United States. France is a country that is aligned with NATO, considers Turkey as a key player, not only at the economic level, commercial, but also at the geostrategic level. We have common interests at the bilateral, regional and international levels. And many challenges to overcome together. The first, it is the fight against terrorism, which has repeatedly hit our two countries. And our cooperation, I have to say it, Mr. The President, on this subject, is exemplary in my eyes. We are taking the necessary measures on our soil to fight the PKK, which we consider a terrorist organization. The PKK, so the crooked party of Kurdistan, is considered by France to be a terrorist organization. And that, it’s the fruit. Diplomatic efforts by Turkey to present this organization as a threat to Turkey. Oh yes, I forgot. Until July 2021, The ambassador of the Turkish Republic in Paris was Ismail Hakim Moussa. At the time of the triple assassination, This man was number 2 in the Turkish secret service. When we tell you that Paris is a nest of spies. While the means of spying have evolved over time, the methods, they, have not changed. You always have to seduce, infiltrate, compromise and destabilize. In the 70s, in the middle of the Cold War, American and Soviet secret services are most active in the French capital. Americans are very present in Paris because France, after the Second World War, has been, from the American point of view… A prime target of Moscow. And so the idea of making France a country ruled by the Communist Party was an idea that Washington greatly feared. In 1975, The CIA chief in Paris is concerned about the rise of the French Communist Party and its popular, media-friendly leader, Georges Marchais. Unless our people deal a decisive blow to the regime of the capital barons, This chance, you have to grab it. We must clearly imagine what the Communist Party was like at that time. It’s 25% votes in the elections. This was the signature of the Common Program of the Left in 1972. It’s still… One of the biggest parties at the time, which is capable of governing. It is believed that they will be the Challengers until the arrest in the next elections. So, let communists govern, I understand why Americans are being so squeamish. The American secret services tried to infiltrate the Communist Party for months. For them, It’s a Russian enclave in the heart of Paris that you need to know everything about. Its leader… And his close guard are therefore placed under surveillance. And in particular the party’s number 2, a certain Gaston Plissonnier, who will be strangely informed. Gaston Plissonnier… Was stopped in front of his house by a guy who was waiting for him in his car. This guy says “I want to talk to you because I’m spying on you, I’m from the CIA.” Plissonnier’s first instinct was to say, “Sir, You are a provocateur. And the guy didn’t attend too much, but told him “Here, please, take this.” He gave her a small piece of paper. And on this little piece of paper, there is a name, a first name, an address and a telephone number. This man’s name is Joseph Marshall. It is him that two journalists from L’Humanité, the party’s daily newspaper, call to understand who they are dealing with. The meeting was arranged for June 3, 1975 in a hotel room at Porte-Maillot. 45 years later, Dominique Durand has not forgotten anything about this astonishing meeting. The guy has a Belgian accent, it’s recognizable. Not very big, a little chubby. There, he is 45-50 years old. At first, he knew that he was being recorded very officially. But I remember he went to look around for a bit. He was worried about whether there was a mirror without it. A microphone, as we see in the movies, a microphone hidden in the base of a lamp or behind a painting. That, It betrayed. But we, he was told, We, we have nothing to hide. You know, with all the techniques they have, Me, I am suspicious. I would even say my toothbrush. He is asked the question, Why are you doing this? He says, it’s because… They promised me raises that they never kept, They promised me equipment, which they never delivered, And so, I am not recognized at my true value, And that’s why I decided to let it all out. This is the attitude of the Americans, to really take us for servants, to take on dangerous missions, not to pay us what we should be. Pay anyway. The Americans start from this principle. It’s that they can buy everything with money. That’s not true. The proof, That’s why I’m here. In services, It rarely happens. The confession of a betrayal. An agent who sits down and spills the beans. It’s all there. In these typewritten pages kept in the archives of the French Communist Party. We have recovered the only copy that exists. Nice shot. SO, for me, who am therefore a little over 20 years old, I admit it’s quite exciting. We find ourselves in a case that will last six months and which will officially be called Operation. Aquarium. The Aquarium is the headquarters of the French Communist Party, located on Place du Colonel Fabien in Paris. An unusual building, fully glazed, built in the early 70s. The symbol of a party which, at the time, occupies a prominent place on the political scene. It’s safe to say that the CIA pulled out all the stops to try to infiltrate the PC. They tried everything, from the simplest to the most bizarre. A real lesson in espionage, starting with traditional spinning. I write down as many numbers as possible while filming. The cars, cars leaving the parking lot and the basement, not forgetting the faces of the visitors. I believe that the main objective, it’s about trying to find people, that we will probably pay, who will become CIA informants because they have access to the inside of the building. From the Communist Party. They have access to the aquarium. So, they will mainly target ancillary services, that is, the cleaning service. They will follow secretaries whom they see arriving in the morning and leaving in the evening. With someone from cleaning, The goal was to put microphones as big as a pinhead. Not directly, but incorporated into advertising ashtrays. The guy would be responsible for checking if there were any ashtrays, Pernofis, or Pastis 51, or Saint-Raphaël Quinquina, or anything like that, in the offices. Because then, they would have the same ashtrays made in Washington, exactly the same, with a microphone inside. On the technical side, they were on point, The CIA guys. As for the budget they had to succeed in this mission, no limit. It helps. If you have to pay 100,000 francs or 200,000 francs to have a microphone in your home, they will give it. You can be sure of that. Money, It’s a good lever to stamp on a target. But there are others. Seduction, For example. Good, I saw a good woman coming out, I was giving him the train, I was trying to see his face, If it were drinkable, if it was well rolled. What I had to do too, It was to give an overview. She is tall, she is small, she is strong or not, she has a wedding ring, she doesn’t have any. Because they placed great importance on it. If she is married… It’s more difficult. They come up with the idea that one of the CIA agents might manage to seduce one of the many secretaries working within the Occupyrium. In order to… Good, There, After, she might be… Maybe she will agree to do something, such and such a thing. So they put a pretty attractive agent, He’s a former model. Who has appeared in Coca-Cola commercials in particular. Our friend Eloua is in charge of courting her. He’s going to cost her, etc. To try to get in touch with her, to go out, to go to the cinema, to offer him dinner, And then, eventually, maybe go to sleep with it. And then ask him to place microphones somewhere in your home. You see, This is the system. Today we know for sure that several secretaries fell under the spell of Victor Eloua. Did they place microphones or provide information on the functioning of the PC to the CIA? Impossible to say. Even Marshall doesn’t know. Marshall is just one cog in Operation Aquarium. There are people after who, based on what he said to his superior, will guide this or that action. Good, if we summarize. An operation that mobilizes 10 agencies is no small feat. Budget-wise, no real limit either. Operation Aquarium should have been a success. And yet, there is a catch. And this snag, It’s Marshall. As we sit down at the table, he ruined everything. The other problem we face, that is to say, do we make it public That, right away ? It means that we cut ourselves off, perhaps from learning things, or do we continue to question him? Nothing will come out, Well, not at the moment. And that’s pretty clever on the PC side, because in terms of revelation, Marshall still has some left in his tank. Marshall says, you should be interested in the market car. When we found out that his car had sound, we fired the driver, Because that means that someone had allowed entry into the garage, or who had left the car unguarded. That means it existed, This means that they have succeeded in spying at the highest level, as a market to the Secretary General. He’s also the guy we see on TV with el-Kabach. Another rising party figure is targeted by the CIA. His name, Jean Canapa. This is a good strategic choice on the part of the CIA, when you think about it. Since he is the man who tried to move the party. The CIA knows perfectly well that it will not be able to return Jean Canapa. He is far too invested in the party. They want to go much further. Gather information, but also, and above all, to influence the decisions of the PC from within. To try to achieve this, They are setting up a crazy scenario. There, they will imagine something, according to what Marshall tells us, which seems incredible. They will try to kidnap Kanapa and replace him with a lookalike. Finally, it seems… Hardly credible, All the more so since Canapin has a very particular physique. We will do what is necessary to know his appearance, his tics, how he does his hair, if he doesn’t fix his hair. You have to know everything. He tells us that he is training a guy, not only so that he would be his double, but for him to have his speech tics, his gestures, He tries to adapt. His speech. The mission almost succeeded, but at the last minute, It got stuck at the top. Washington says wait, because they are not very keen to make the substitution, to make someone look like a double. They are not very warm, They’re afraid it’ll fail. It is difficult to know precisely the result of this extraordinary operation carried out by the CIA to infiltrate the headquarters of the French Communist Party. By sound-proofing Georges Marchais’ car or seducing some party secretaries, We can imagine that they managed to glean some information. Joseph Marshall disappeared overnight. For his part, The journalist from L’Humanité revealed this incredible Operation Aquarium in the February 16, 1976 edition. With the American services in Paris, We haven’t always been so accommodating. In 1995, an episode caused a stir. France expelled CIA officials. January 26, 1995, Charles Pasqua summons Place Beauvau, Mrs. Pamela Harriman, United States Ambassador to Paris. They are ordering her to repatriate five American citizens, members of the CIA, accused of having engaged in espionage activities on our territory. Four of these American intelligence agents are officially diplomats at the United States Embassy. According to the DST investigation, reported by Le Monde, The CIA’s office in Paris was very interested in France’s economic and commercial policy. And these agents did not hesitate to try to recruit senior French officials. This incredible story began three years earlier. At the time, The Bush administration is moving to create the World Trade Organization. While the stakes are high, Americans are having trouble understanding France’s position. So the CIA is going to try a good old method, A seduction operation led by a very special agent. Officially, a businesswoman at the head of a foundation. In his sights, a prime target, a senior French official. His name is Henri Plagnol. I am a young master of hierquest at the Council of State. I also have some lessons, particularly on international relations, because I have always been passionate about it, at Sciences Po. The meeting took place at a cocktail party at UNESCO in June 1992. She presents herself as the head of a Foundation for Transatlantic Relations. Clearly passionate about French culture, happy to be in Paris, typically the good American bourgeoisie. And I was far from suspecting, Obviously, I learned after, that he was actually an undercover CIA agent. Marianne Baumgartner will play with patience and skill. She quickly calls Henri Plagnol back, wants to see him again, to exchange. The man is flattered. She invites me to lunch, so I had to have lunch with her 4 or 5 times. And she is very interested in, Not what I do at the Council of State, but my teaching of international relations. And so, it’s obviously easy for me to give him a kind of lesson, lesson on international relations. Marianne Baumgartner is not completely unknown to French counter-espionage services. He watches her from afar, without intervening. But with his new mission, it can change. The DST, Before. We don’t know how, because a senior French official has somewhat advanced relations with a woman who is potentially one of the CIA’s advanced pawns on French territory. Henri Plagnol was soon also put under surveillance by the French secret services. Lunches follow one another, nothing alarming. Until the day the civil servant reaches a more sensitive position. Here I am appointed to the office of Édouard Malendure, after the legislative elections which brought the right back to power. Obviously, I accept. So, there, all of a sudden, It’s getting a little warmer. The DST is mobilizing a little more resources. Obviously, When a technical advisor to the Prime Minister hangs out with a CIA agent, It can give orders. But when, in addition, the advisor suggests that the spy come to lunch at Matignon, due to lack of time, there, it really sucks. At the DST, we decide to turn to the one who was the chief of staff at the time of Edouard Balladur, who is called Nicolas Bazir. Who happens to be a classmate at the ENA, in the Plagnoles, And we take him into our confidence. Nicolas Bazir, who is very sorry about this situation, a cadabrande arm, said to me “Henry, You must be questioned immediately by the DST. So, I find myself briefly in the office of the director of the DST himself, who tells me in five minutes, rather cordial, but at the same time very determined, that I am in contact. With a CIA agent, Marianne Baumgartner. So, there, I don’t believe it. And even, I’m getting angry. This story will, however, take a very romantic turn at this point. Henri Plagnol, The spied advisor, will become a spy for the DST himself. For the American secret services, It’s a bit like the tables are turned. SO, I understand immediately that in any case, I have no choice. And then, I have a strong military heritage and a sense of public service which means that… So, I was unhappy with this situation, but I’ve made up my mind. A commitment all the more important as he must give up his position as advisor at Matignon and commit full-time to his mission as a spy. Henri Plagnol finds himself recruited by the DST to go and do what is one of the major mass weapons. counter-espionage To spread disinformation to the Americans. Contacts with Marianne Baumgartner will resume. And through her, This time, it is Henri Plagnol who will attempt to poison the CIA about the ongoing negotiations. But how The DST gives him carte blanche. Listen, We… We trust you. For what Because we, we don’t understand much about the issues at stake in the negotiation. You are in the best position to convince your interlocutor that you are a reliable source, that you will tell them interesting things, and whatever you tell them, It must be in the interest of France. Left to his own devices, Henri Plagnol implements a communication strategy to remain credible. Not easy. I took an admin directory in one hand to do some name dropping, and impress. Mrs. Aumgartner, and a press review in the other, to adjust at each meeting. What I told him with the precise evolution of the negotiation. Obviously, intoxication works wonders. The information provided by Henri Plagnol is of great interest to the CIA. We are just a few months away from the final signing of international trade agreements. And there, surprise ! Marianne Baumgartner told me in September that from now on, the meetings would no longer be with her. New, higher-ranking American agents enter the game. Meetings, always hidden from view, in small suburban hotels. Until this last meeting where a woman joins them. And not least for the DST. They told me that he was an important figure in the hierarchy of the assignat. And that means she’s going to tell Washington whether what you’re saying is reliable or not. Brief, if there is a chance of breaking the French in the last line. Or if there are still concessions that can be obtained. This was the last meeting between Henri Plagnol and the CIA. He completed his mission. Was he finally unmasked? Only the CIA has the answer. In any case, France’s interests were preserved. When the WTO was not established in 1994. Historic day in Marrakech, in Morocco, where the delegations of 124 countries participating in the Uruguay Round, as they say, adopted the GATT agreements. Which consecrates the establishment of the largest liberalization of world trade known on our planet. The 124 delegations rise, thunderous applause, handshakes. Seven years of tough negotiations, which often turned into confrontation between Europe and the United States, sometimes with Japan, are completed. This counter-espionage affair should have remained secret. But in February 1995, The front page of the world resonates like a knife. Thunder in the intelligence world. Good evening, CIA agents spied on French interests in Paris. The government requests the departure of 5 US secret service agents. They are said to have infiltrated companies, but also perhaps ministries. You have never seen in France a United States ambassador summoned to Matignon. Following his interview with Edouard Balladur, Pamela Harriman will therefore not comment. And yet, France… Demand the repatriation to the United States of five American nationals, including four diplomats, including the CIA station chief and his deputy. These revelations come at just the right time for a man, the Minister of the Interior. Everything suggests that Charles Pascua himself revealed the bad American methods to the press. Because two months before the presidential election, The war is raging on the right between Édouard Balladur and Jacques Chirac. Both candidates. And Charles Pasqua, support of the Prime Minister, is mired in a political-financial affair. His resignation is demanded. That these attacks also come from my camp, of the right or those who claim to be right-wing, I’m just saying they’ve lost their minds and don’t know where they are anymore. In any case, The leaks to the press allowed him to create a diversion and reassert his authority. I think that if the US Ambassador had followed up on our request 15 days ago, none of this would amount to anything. Let me tell you this, though. The most important thing, it’s not that it was made public, that such facts can exist. Such facts between allies… Are unacceptable. Unmasking an allied country allows the balance of power to be slightly altered, at least occasionally. All of a sudden, we can almost talk, like around a poker table, as equals, saying “ok, there it is you who lost, there it is me who has… » And so the maps are a little bit skewed for a while. In terms of spying methods, The Soviets are not to be outdone. You remember Sergei Zhirnov, the Russian agent We’re going to tell you his story. He knows how intelligence is an old tradition in Moscow and Paris, a prime target. The French remain a little naive about the level of espionage by the Soviet Union and Russia. In the Soviet Union, closed country, very few people went abroad. Which means that… Anyone who went outside the RSS’s borders worked for the KGB. Mandatory in 1991, Sergei is 30 years old, he is a recent graduate of the Andropov Institute, the prestigious Soviet spy school. His asset He speaks four languages, including French, his animated cover, a French-language show on Soviet television. Most French politicians visiting Moscow find themselves in front of Sergei’s microphone. François Fillon, Jack Lang, Alain Juppé, Alain Decaux. His address book is expanding and his coverage as a journalist is now solid. He can move up a gear. My superiors told me, It’s good to work in Moscow, but we, we are the spies, so our goal, it’s outside. SO, You will have to find a way to go to France for a long enough time. What can you offer us? Arriving in Paris, Sergei Zhirnov keeps his true identity, that of a Soviet journalist. He belongs to the illegals department, that is, he has no diplomatic immunity. No attachment to the embassy. He is released into the wild, somehow, with a very specific mission. I am starting to contact all the French institutions, saying “I am a Soviet journalist”, which was true, “I have a program on television”, which was true, and “I want to do a series of programs on French institutions.” SO, Constitutional Council, Council of State, Parliament, the Elysée, Matignon, ministries and the ENA. The ENA, the National School of Administration, which trains the future political elite. At the time, it was located on Rue de l’Université in Paris. Four presidents of the Republic and dozens of ministers have left. A mine of information and a significant network of influence for the Soviets. Sergei Zhirnov was welcomed with open arms. They are delighted because I am going to talk about the ENA on Soviet television, So I’m going to do a little advertising. The Soviet Union at the time, it was almost 300 million inhabitants, It was 15 states. The impact is enormous. And the spy’s mission will benefit from an unexpected opportunity. At the end of the conversation, he said to me “but you know, This year, In fact, The school opened to the Soviets for the first time. We already have the first candidate who is Gorbachev’s interpreter. Would you like to, In fact, to be part of this first Soviet promotion which will be attached to the long cycle of the enormous? I say “why not?” Inside, I rejoice, I say “here, I found my thing. This is a nice move for the Russian spy. No KGB member had infiltrated this prestigious school before. For him, ENA is a breeding ground for informants and more if there is a connection. What interests us, It’s about having interesting profiles. People who are rather left-leaning, In fact. Finally, at the time, in the Soviet era, Because we, we were communists. We worked for a communist state, so suddenly, maybe we were looking for people, either the communists, either the left-wing people, or people of sensitivity, a little democratic. This did not absolutely prevent working with the right, because the Gaullist right, It was almost more open than the Communist Party. Very quickly, The Russian spy sends notes and reports to his superiors in Moscow. And then, His ambition will be stopped. Hurriedly because of the big story. Two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Soviet empire is collapsing. Deep, dices, the USSR no longer exists, The official death of the USSR was signed today in Alma-Ata. There is no more USSR, the CIS, Independent State Community, was born this weekend in Alma-Ata. Russia decided this afternoon to take control of the Soviet intelligence services. The KGB, the spy organ, dismembered Soviet counterintelligence and intelligence, The Council of State decided yesterday to abolish it. With the death of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the KGB, It’s a debacle in the secret services. Sergei Gernoff’s mission ends. And it takes time for a new organization to be put in place. The former spy returned to civilian life as a journalist and consultant between France, Switzerland and its country. In the meantime, in Russia… The KGB becomes the SVR and begins to recall its troops. When he was weakened, He let almost half of his staff go. And when he started to get back on his feet, Maybe he wanted to get some people back. And so, Me, I was very well introduced abroad. They said, We would like you to come home. And me, I didn’t want to because I understood that it was the only historical possibility of getting out of it. This is how Sergei Girnov’s story with his country’s secret services ends. At least, France hopes so. The world is changing. Superpowers are weakened and others emerge or return to the game. This is the case in China, Who, she too, has its branches in the French capital. The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China and its services today occupies six addresses in Paris, Just that. In the 7th, THE 8th, 13th and 16th. Like any foreign power, The embassy obviously houses spies, most of whom come from the Guanbu, State Security. But with new technologies, China has found another way to operate in France. New methods of espionage. The Ministry of State Security was somewhat reluctant to conduct recruitment operations abroad. Reluctant because there was a kind of risk aversion, somehow, And also because he lacked skills, including language skills, What is fundamental to carry out operations, especially in the West. So the parade, It was about developing their cyber skills. Cyber espionage, It is… It’s one of their specialties. It must be said that they benefit from considerable resources. They train a number of engineers every year that is unknown anywhere else in the world. So, for the Chinese, cyber intelligence, even if the Chinese government does not admit this, This is a matter of prime importance. Cyber competence, It’s a way to be able to conduct intelligence operations in a country without actually being there. The Chinese are masters in this field. In the summer of 2018, they find their Trojan horse, LinkedIn. On this professional social network, Chinese spies identify influential French profiles and then operate according to a very specific method. There were a lot of fake LinkedIn accounts created by the MSE. To try to attract, to attract executives from both large French groups, but also people from the administration. These French people, for the majority employed in strategic positions in Paris, were approached by decoys, fake profiles in fake companies, behind which Chinese spies are actually hiding. Imagine you are a diplomat, that you are working on a subject that interests the Chinese, or you are in another ministry, a ministry of economy. For example. We are interested in your work, We are interested in your skills. Would you be willing to give a lecture in Shanghai? in Wuhan, in Beijing, never mind We’ll pay for their plane ticket, we’ll pay for a hotel for them 4 or 5 stars, and we go regularly, often on their vacation period, bring them back, pamper them. Then, try to create a relationship that allows you to obtain information. A contract worker from the Ministry of the Economy, A researcher at a Parisian university and an executive at a listed company are among the 4,000 French people contacted by Chinese services. How many of them were duped into agreeing to go there? Only the Chinese services know this. What is certain, is that to have access to the sources, Chinese spies stop at nothing. MI5, British Counter Intelligence Service, released a brochure in the early 2010s aimed at the business world. To warn businessmen, the financiers, against the methods of Chinese intelligence services, in particular, perhaps being in contact with… Young and pretty women, not necessarily Chinese, but which can also be Chinese, and who are, in fact, pilot fish in the service of Chinese espionage. When you do intelligence or counterintelligence, you have to be a little vicious. If you are a candid weapon who goes to confess your sins every Sunday, you’re not going very far. You have to be vicious. We must play on the springs of the human soul which are not necessarily the best. Since the waves of attacks that hit Paris, It is said that French counterintelligence is more concerned with managing the terrorist threat than with infiltration or manipulation. It is also said that with cyber espionage, no need to pound the pavement to glean information. Not so sure. Human intelligence will always have a special place in the world of spies, And Paris will always remain their nest.