DÉFENSE ZONE
As the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, France’s foreign intelligence service) celebrated its 40th anniversary last April, an order dated 13 July set out its new organisation. The last reform of such importance dates back to 1989. The French secret services are moving towards a flatter organisational chart, along the lines of the CIA.
The DGSE, whose importance has been recognised by recent governments, has seen its budget of 880 million euros increase by 80% since 2012. Staff numbers are not far behind, with an increase of more than 1,000 people since 2008, and another 1,000 posts are due to be created between 2019 and 2025. Meanwhile, in 2028, the “Service” is due to leave the ageing barracks on boulevard Mortier for new premises on the site of the Fort Neuf de Vincennes, a project estimated at 1.4 billion euros. Despite this, the DGSE has recently come in for a great deal of criticism, accused of failing to foresee the war in Ukraine, the coups in the Sahel or Australia’s cancellation of its purchase of French submarines.
“It’s not a revolution, but a reform to improve the way the DGSE works”, reassures someone close to the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu. The most striking change is that the intelligence directorate has been abolished. “There were too many layers of hierarchy, especially within the Intelligence Directorate, and young staff complained about it”, a source close to the matter told our colleagues at the newspaper l’Opinion. In addition to the all-powerful DR (intelligence directorate), the DGSE previously comprised: the administration directorate (DA), the operations directorate (DO), the strategy directorate (DS) and the technical directorate (DT). To put an end to this siloed organisation, the DGSE now comprises:
- The administration directorate (DA)
It is responsible for “general administration and administrative and logistical support missions [..], the protection of strategic information and the preservation of archives”.
- The research and operations directorate (DRO)
It is responsible for “developing and preparing the collection and action resources needed to carry out the missions”.
- The technical and innovation directorate (DTI)
The DTI focuses on technical matters and has the same responsibilities as the DRO.
- The general secretariat for analysis and strategy (SGAS)
While the DTI and the DRO are responsible for collecting information, the SGAS will be in charge of analysing and synthesising it and disseminating it to the DGSE’s counterparts.
Finally, the order of 13 July announces the creation of “mission centres”, each with its own focus area, in the same way that large companies are swapping their silos for business units. Although the list is not public, we can assume that their themes will mirror today’s major issues (terrorism, serious organised crime, nuclear proliferation, the war in Ukraine, etc.) or geographical areas of interest such as the Sahel, the Indo-Pacific or the Balkans.
