France
The contemporary French intelligence and counterintelligence system consists of an amalgam of units dating from the time of Napoleon I and an organization developed by General Charles de Gaulle as leader of the Free French in World War II. From 1946 until 1981 the major French intelligence service was the SDECE. In 1981 the SDECE was reorganized as the DGSE (General Directorate of External Security). Although the agency changed its structure, it retained its traditional functions: foreign intelligence, counterespionage outside France, and overseas covert political intervention.
Another major French intelligence agency is the Second Directorate of the National Defense Staff, which combines, to some degree, formerly separate army, navy, and air force agencies. Charged with gathering foreign military intelligence for the French general staff, it is no doubt influenced by the traditions and doctrines of the French army’s old Deuxième Bureau. The DST (Directorate of Territorial Security), a third important member of the French intelligence system, is responsible for internal security, playing a role similar to that of the American FBI. It is controlled by the Ministry of the Interior.
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 American 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, and in 2002 it was charged that the DGSE had uncovered compromising information on French President Jacques Chirac on behalf of his opponents.