Sébastien Laurent

The free French secret services: Intelligence and the politics of republican legitimacy

The improvised nature of the French political and military entities established in London in 1940 makes the study of relations between the Free French military secret services and political leadership particularly delicate. After initially attempting to respect the traditional separation between military and political authority that had prevailed under the Third Republic, the role of the Free French secret services was progressively politicised by the exigencies of a clandestine war. Moreover, increasingly tense relations between certain leaders of the Resistance inside France and the leadership of the Gaullist secret services, along with preparations for the political reconstruction of France after the war, resulted in a war of successive decrees pertaining to the place of the intelligence services within the government hierarchy. The end result was that the secret services were placed under true direct civilian control. This marked a radical modification of the traditional system which had prevailed during the Third Republic. Free French leader Charles de Gaulle approved of this modification but never appeared to attach great importance to matters relating to the organisation and functioning of the intelligence services.

Is there Something Wrong with Intelligence in France? The Birth of the Modern Secret State

The lack of academic interest in intelligence in France partly explains the prevalence of many preconceived ideas about French Intelligence. This article deals with the slow building of Frances intelligence machinery in the nineteenth century, as part of a study of the modern French State. At this time, intelligence practices were transformed by the appearance of several intelligence bureaucracies. Studying three dimensions of the development – informal practices, formal organizations and statutory rules – the article demonstrates the closeness of intelligence to politics. Doing so it suggests that intelligence needs to be considered not only as an instrument of policy-making but as an actor at the centre of the modern French state, a part of its very essence.

France and the Nazi Menace. Intelligence and Policy Making, 1933-1939

France and the Nazi Menace examines the French response to the challenge posed by National Socialist Germany in the years 1933-1939. It focuses on the relationship between the intelligence on German intentions and capabilities and the evolution of French national policy from the rise of Hitler in 1933 to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Based on extensive archival research, it considers the nature of the intelligence process and the place of intelligence within the French policy making establishment during the inter-war period. The central argument in the book is that the German threat was far from the only challenge facing French national leaders in an era of economic depression and profound ideological discord. Only after the national humiliation at the Munich Conference did the threat from Nazi Germany take precedence over Frances internal problems in the making of policy.