Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure
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(Redirected from DGSE)
The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (generally known as DGSE) is France's external intelligence agency.
On April 2, 1982 it replaced the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE).
Its motto is Partout où nécessité fait loi ("In every place where necessity makes law").
Contents |
Organization
Headquarters
The DGSE is headquartered at 141 Boulevard Mortier in Paris. The building is often referred to as La piscine ("the swimming pool") because of the nearby Piscine des Tourelles of the French Swimming Federation.
Divisions
- Directorate of Administration
- Directorate of Strategy
- Directorate of Intelligence
- Technical Division - electronic intelligence and devices
- Operations Division (formerly Active Service Division) - clandestine operations, such as "arma" (destruction or theft of materiel),"homo" (homicide or abduction), "obs" (observation), with a majority of elite military personnel
- Action Division - formerly had available the 11th Shock Parachutist Regiment until its disbanding on June 30, 1995, when it was replaced by three centers: CPES in Cercottes, CIPS in Perpignan and CPEOM in Roscanvel.
Directors
- Pierre Marion, June 17, 1981 - November 10, 1982
- Adm. Pierre Lacoste, November 10, 1982 - September 19, 1985
- Gen. René Imbot, September 20, 1985 - December 1, 1987
- Gen. François Mermet, December 2, 1987 - Mars 23, 1989
- Claude Silberzahn, Mars 23, 1989 - June 7, 1993
- Jacques Dewatre, June 7, 1993 - December 19, 1999
- Jean-Claude Cousseran, December 19, 1999 - July 24, 2002
- Pierre Brochand, July 24, 2002 -
Famous missions
- Announce Yom Kippur War in October 1973
- Announce Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 (preceding the CIA)
- Operation Barracuda: Coup d'état against the Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa in Central African Republic in 1979 and installation of a pro-French government.
- Exploitation (with the DST) of the source "Farewell" at the beginning of the Eighties which made it possible to reveal the most important technological spying network in Europe and in the United States ever considering to date. The Soviet Union recovered more than 50% of the Western discoveries without the Western services realising.
- Exploitation of the network "Nicobar" which made it possible France to sell 43 Mirage 2000 in India and to know the composition of the shielding of the Soviet T-72 tank;
- Mission SATANIC, a mission aimed at preventing Greenpeace protests against French nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean, by sinking the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland. Bungling lead to New Zealand police uncovering the plot. Two agents were captured and convicted in connection with the murder of a journalist on the ship by the DGSE. French relations with its ally New Zealand were sorely strained. (10 July, 1985)
- June 12, 2005, the DGSE releases French journalist Florence Aubenas, hostage in Iraq.
