Directorate-General for External Security

The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure ( DGSE; German General for External Security ) is the French foreign intelligence service. It was established on 2 April 1982 as the successor organization of the SDECE without largely changing organizational and personnel. The tasks of the DGSE consist of espionage and counterespionage outside the territory. Assuming the DGSE is the French Defense. Approximately 3,300 civilian employees and 1,500 military personnel who are formally assigned to the 44th Infantry Regiment work for the service.

  • 2.1 Operation Satanique - sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior
  • 2.2 rescue mission in Somalia

Building / structure

Headquarters

The headquarters of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure located in the barracks Mortier in the 20th arrondissement in Paris.

The sections of the DGSE

Actions

Operation Satanique - sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior

The role of the state in the world system and the resulting interests determine the intelligence activities. For France, these are mainly the role of the former colonial power and as a nuclear power in foreign policy. After 1989, however, can be observed an increasing fusion of internal and external tasks. The national security of the country is at the center.

Many years earlier, met the French nuclear policy on increasing protests of environmentalists. This protest joined the South Pacific states who saw themselves exposed to new risks. The autonomy aspirations of the French overseas territories reached in 1983 - especially in New Caledonia - a new peak. A year later, David Longe, an outspoken opponent of nuclear policy, elected Prime Minister of New Zealand. Were particularly strongly criticized the French nuclear tests on the Mururoa Atoll.

The largest has become known scandal of the DGSE was in July 1985, "Operation Satanique ", the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship in Auckland harbor. Agents of the DGSE brought as a diver sent a time fuse limpet mine below the water line of the steel hull ship to explode, creating the Dutch- Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira was killed. The agents broke away immediately and were on the high seas of the upcoming Australian submarine Rubis (S 601), which matches France admitted afterwards. Two agents, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart were arrested in New Zealand and convicted of manslaughter.

As political consequences of this affair the DGSE Director General Admiral Pierre Lacoste, as well as the Secretary of Defense Charles Hernu were replaced. Representative of France emphasized in public statements but again that France was planning not to put his position as a nuclear power or its position in the Pacific in question and therefore continue its nuclear tests in this region would.

Rescue mission in Somalia

On January 12, 2013 confirmed France's defense minister Jean -Yves Le Drian on French television that in a failed military operation to free the DGSE agent Denis Allex in Bula - Marer, approximately 30 km south of Merka, this and two other French soldiers, including a helicopter pilot, were killed. During the action, five helicopters were used and killed 17 fighters of the al -Shabaab. Le Drian said that the government had to take the risk because the agent had been arrested along with another agent since his abduction on 14 July 2009 from a hotel in Mogadishu in inhumane conditions. One of the agents succeeded later flight. According to official figures, the two Frenchmen were involved in the training of the Somali police and the presidential guard in 2009.

Line

Personnel / Finance

In 1996, the DGSE had a workforce of 2,500 people, including 1,700 civilians, with an official budget of FF 1.35 billion. 2007 the budget was 450 million euros and 36 million euros for special editions. In 2009, the DGSE 4,492 full-time employees. The budget amounted to 543.8 million euros and 48.9 million euros for special editions. 2011, the DGSE 4,747 full-time employees.

Emmeraude

Although the DGSE focuses primarily on people as a source, it has the technical communication monitoring the ensemble Mobile Écoute et Automatique Search Of Emissions ( Emmeraude ). It is controlled by Alluets - Feucherolles in the Yvelines, west of Paris. Despite everything, there is a list of listening stations of the DGSE in France and the rest of the world. These 30 plants cover virtually the entire globe from - with the exception of northern Siberia and parts of the Pacific.

In the wake of the NSA scandal in 2013 researched Le Monde that the DGSE has a comprehensive program for the surveillance of electronic communications. Technically, this is implemented by Čelar ( center d' électronique de l' armement ). The magazine reported that the foreign intelligence service stores systematic connection data for telephone calls, text messages and e -mails that go beyond French lines. Also, information on Twitter and Facebook messages were illegally kept for years and evaluated when needed. Access to the data have in addition to the domestic security service, among other customs. The contents of messages or calls would not be recorded. At the " Le Monde" report the then government was initially delivered no opinion.

The monitoring network of the DGSE consists of the following stations:

  • Alluets - Feucherolles ( Yvelines): west of Paris
  • Mutzig, (Bas -Rhin)
  • Mont Valérien
  • Plateau d' Albion, (Vaucluse )
  • Domme (near Sarlat, Périgord )
  • St. Laurent de la Salanque: completed in 1997, located in a marsh near Perpignan; Priority will be given to those radio waves from the other side of the Mediterranean - come - especially from Algeria
  • Cap d' Agde (Hérault )
  • Solenzara ( Corsica )
  • Filley ( Nice): in a barracks; directed mainly to the Italian border
  • St. Barthelemy, ( Lesser Antilles )
  • Bouar
  • Djibouti, (Chad)
  • Mayotte (Indian Ocean): completed in 1998
  • La Réunion
  • Kourou (French Guiana ): Opened in 1990 the public away
  • Tontouta (New Caledonia): Seeflughafen

Due to the fact that France was a colonial power, is for the country is still the possibility of establishing such stations outside of its territory.

April 2 Domme, Dordogne Saint-Christol (Vaucluse) Industrial espionage Colonial empire List of states with nuclear weapons Underwater diving French submarine Rubis (S601) Jean-Yves Le Drian Al-Shabaab (militant group) Pierre Marion Army general Diplomat Bas-Rhin Italy List of intelligence agencies of France Alliance Base Direction du Renseignement Militaire
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