International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 21

International Journal on Criminology - Fall 2015, Volume 3, Number 2
Terrorism(s), Intelligence, and Freedoms: France’s Patriot
Act Light?
Alain Bauer A
In the 1970s, the then interior minister, Raymond Marcellin, had a hunch that
terrorism would become a major challenge. This led him to summon the head
of the domestic intelligence agency, the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance
(Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire; DST), and recommend that he set up a
specialist terrorism unit. Taken aback—shocked, even—at being thus “distracted”
from his vital work of counterespionage, the chief “let it slip his mind.” Marcellin,
a Breton and typically stubborn, went ahead and simply ordered the unit into
existence. The first modern reform of domestic intelligence was undertaken in 1990
at the instigation of the then prime minister, Michel Rocard, and his advisor, Prefect
Rémy Pautrat, himself a former head of the DST. Nicolas Sarkozy set up the Central
Directorate of Internal Intelligence (Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur;
DCRI) and the Parliamentary Delegation for Intelligence between 2007 and 2012. A
further step towards adopting relevant legislation was taken at the behest of interior
minister Manuel Valls and Jean-Jacques Urvoas, chairman of the National Assembly
Law Commission.
Once Valls had been moved to the prime minister’s office at Matignon, the pair
decided to add the finishing touches to this slow but tangible process by delivering
modern legislation on intelligence that would be appropriate to the threats and
technologies that had emerged since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 2001 attacks.
The draft, which was of a very high standard, states that
the intelligence services research, gather, exploit, and make available
to the government information relating to geopolitical and strategic
challenges and to threats and risks likely to affect the life of the nation.
They facilitate awareness and anticipation of these challenges as well as
the prevention and reduction of these risks and threats.
The text sets out seven ultimate purposes for which the intelligence services
would be able to apply sometimes exceptional investigative techniques:
• national security (national independence, territorial integrity, and
national defense, together with the prevention of any form of foreign
intervention or attacks on the republican system or the stability of
institutions);
A
Professor of criminology at the National Conservatory for Arts and Crafts, New York and Beijing.
Most recent work: Qui est l’ennemi?, CNRS Editions.
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