What is said in French intelligence about the unrest with Australia

Giuseppe Gagliano’s point of view

Bernard Emmy, director general of France’s DGSE foreign intelligence service, will answer questions from the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on October 6 about Naval Group’s canceled order for 12 submarines in Australia.

On October 12, Naval Group President Pierre-Eric Baumelier and Defense Minister Florence Parly will speak to the commission, which is investigating how France lost the strategic contract. “Why and how did our diplomatic network and intelligence services not know about the operation?” This is what Christian Cambon, head of the committee, put forward a few days ago.

However, the DGSE won’t be able to say much. In fact, if Amy said the service was actively collecting information on its strategic allies in Australia, that admission would only indicate that the Australian government was right to back out of a deal with a partner it was spying on.

However, the DGSE has worked hard to support the French sale, as it usually does in large contracts negotiated in a complex environment, for example the 2017 talks with Italy’s rival Qatar and the 2007 talks for the sale. Del Rafale to Morocco, which also sounded to the US F-16.

In August, the DGSE sent an additional officer to Canberra, in addition to measures already in place by the service, when some members of the naval group and the French government began to doubt Australia’s intentions.

Aimee himself was closely watching the development of the decade during his talks with Matthias Kormann, now secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, after the G7 summit in June, when the agreement with the American University of Kosovo was secretly negotiated between Canberra, London and Washington. Corman, who was involved in negotiations with the Naval Group when he was Australia’s finance minister, also saw Pomelo at around the same time.