International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 22

International Journal on Criminology
• vital foreign policy interests and compliance with France’s European
and international commitments;
• France’s vital economic and scientific interests;
• the prevention of terrorism;
• the prevention of the reformation or continuation of any previously
dissolved groups;
• the prevention of organized crime and delinquency;
• the prevention of collective violence likely to result in serious disturbance
of the public peace.
Six specialist intelligence services that may employ in a legal and controlled
fashion highly intrusive measures to carry out their assigned tasks are identified: the
General Directorate for External Security (Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure;
DGSE); the Defense Protection and Security Directorate (Direction de la Protection et
de la Sécurité de la Défense; DPSD); the Military Intelligence Directorate (Direction
du renseignement militaire; DRM), answerable to the Defense Ministry; the General
Directorate for Internal Security (Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure; DGSI)
at the Interior Ministry; and the National Directorate of Intelligence and Customs
Investigations (Direction Nationale du Renseignement et des Enquêtes Douanières;
DNRED) and Intelligence Processing and Action against Illegal Financial Networks
(Traitement du renseignement et action contre les circuits financiers clandestins;
TRACFIN) at the Economy Ministry.
I will not be reexamining here the details of what is a particularly detailed bill
that will no doubt be fiercely debated in parliament. Rather, I will look at where further
technical or legal improvements might be made.
Throughout the world, there is an intelligence community that is experiencing
the same symptoms that can be observed in France. The first such intelligence
community was set up in the United States in December 1981 by a Ronald Reagan
irritated by the pointless and childish competition prevailing in the world of espionage.
It brought together seventeen services (there are thought to have been more than 1,200
in the United States) from various ministries (for example, defense, security, justice,
and energy) under the authority of the director of intelligence (who took office only in
2004).
In France, the 2008 White Paper would insist on the need to reform the
Interministerial Intelligence Committee, founded in 1962 but largely underused despite
an initial dusting off required by Michel Rocard in 1990.
In May 2011 and again in 2014, the prime minister set up an intelligence
community (to be called special services) that defined the sector’s “first division.” It
17