Intelligence reform and the transformation of the state: the end of a French exception

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the intelligence sector is a privileged vantage point to observe and analyse a transformation of the State in France, as this transformation deeply affects the heart of the executive power and the French intelligence and security apparatus. Traditionally, intelligence was not conceived in France as a functional tool in the hands of the decision-maker but was rather defined as a ‘regalian power’. Intelligence activities were derived from a very specific conception of the State, and especially the particular notion of ‘reason of State’ (raison d’État). The current intelligence reform prompts speculation as to whether it represents more than a ‘simple’ functional reorganisation or in fact could signify that intelligence is now recognised as a tool in the hands of a ‘État de droit’ (‘liberal state’). The idea of a French ‘exceptionalism’ is addressed through a theoretical approach of the way France redefines intelligence and surveillance in relation with a major evolution of the notion of ‘reason of State’ itself. Then the article illustrates the assumption of a ‘lost tradition’ of reason of State through an analysis of the current reform of the intelligence sector in France. This reform is based on processes of rationalisation, centralization, modernisation and normalisation of both intelligence activities and intelligence services in France. As a conclusion, the article addresses the reactions to the January and November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, and asks whether resilience towards terrorism requires to accelerate the pace of the transformation of the French intelligence sector.

KEYWORDS:

• France
• intelligence
• liberalism
• defense reform
• reason of State

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ We use here the notion of ‘liberal State’ with care, and not in a normative or teological sense that the there would be an ‘Anglo-American’ way of defining politics and the polity that would be objectively ‘normal’ and a ‘model.’

² See: Marcel Gauchet, ‘L’État au miroir de la raison d’État’, in Yves-Charles Zarka (ed.), Raison et déraison d’État. Théoriciens et théories de La raison d’État aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: PUF 1994).

³ That notion, commonly used, has proved to be quite controversial in contemporary theory of International Theory, to the point that it is sometimes referred to as a myth. See: Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Westphalia and all that’, in Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane (eds.), Ideas and Foreign Policy (Ithaca NY: Cornell UP 1993), 235–264; Andreas Osiander, ‘Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth’, International Organization 55/2 (Spring 2001), 251–287; Stéphane Beaulac, ‘The Westphalian Model in Defining International Law: Challenging the Myth’, Australian Journal of Legal History 9 (2004), 181–213.

⁴ See: François Bluche, L’Ancien Régime (Paris: Éditions de Fallois-Le livre de poche 1993); Robert Mandrou, L’Europe « absolutiste »: Raison et raison d’État 1649–1775 (Paris: Fayard 1977); Joël Cornette, La France de La monarchie absolue (Paris: Seui 1997).

⁵ See: William Church (ed.), The Impact of Absolutism in France: National experience under Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV (New York: Wiley 1969).

⁶ See: William Church (ed.), Richelieu and Reason of State (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1977).

⁷ See: Michel Senellart, Machiavélisme et raison d’État (Paris: PUF 1989); Michel Senellart, Les Arts de gouverner: Du ‘regimen’ médiéval au concept de gouvernement (Paris: Seuil 1995).

⁸ See: Dominique Reynié, ‘Le regard souverain: Statistique sociale et raison d’État du XVIe au XVIIIe siècles’, in Christian Lazzeri and DominiqueReynié (eds.), La raison d’État: Politique et rationalité (Paris: PUF 1992), 43–82.

⁹ See: Joël Cornette, Absolutisme et Lumières (Paris: Hachette 1993).

¹⁰ See: Olivier Beaud, La Puissance de l’État (Paris: PUF 1994); Pascal Binczak, le Principe d’immunité juridictionnelle en droit administratif français, histoire d’un paradoxe (Paris: Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne 2000) Thèse pour le doctorat en Droit public.

¹¹ Antonino Troianiello, Raison d’État et droit public (Le Havre: Université du Havre 1999) Thèse pour le doctorat en Droit public.

¹² See: Pierre Serrand, L’Acte de gouvernement: Contribution à la théorie Des fonctions juridiques de l’État (Paris: Université Paris II 1996) Thèse pour le doctorat en Droit public; Salama Saber, L’Acte de gouvernement: Contribution À l’étude de La force majeure dans le contrat international (Bruxelles: Bruylant 2001).

¹³ That’s the thesis of the original study of the problem by the French Law Professor André Gros: André Gros, Survivance de La raison d’État (Paris: Dalloz 1932).

¹⁴ See: Georges Burdeau, le pouvoir politique de l’État (Paris: LGDJ 1942); Danièle Loschak, le rôle politique Du juge administratif (Paris: LGDJ 1972).

¹⁵ Denis Baranger, Ecrire La constitution non-écrite (Paris: P.U.F., coll. Leviathan 2008).

¹⁶ Jacques Chevallier, L’Etat de droit (Paris: Montchrestien 1992).

¹⁷ On the difficulty to translate into English the continental notion of ‘Etat de droit’ (or ‘Rechtstaat’ in German), due to the fact that the notion of ‘rule of Law’ is not really the equivalent, see Philippe Raynaud, ‘Etat de droit’, ‘Etat légal’, ‘Rule of Law’, ‘Judicial Review’, ‘Law et Right’ in Barbara Cassin (ed.), Vocabulaire européen Des philosophies: Dictionnaire Des intraduisibles (Paris: Le Seuil/Le Robert 2004). As Elisbeth Zoller puts it, a lot of ‘transatlantic mistranslations’ can occur, see: Elisabeth Zoller, de Nixon À Clinton, essai sur un malentendu transatlantique (Paris: PUF 1999).

¹⁸ Senellart, Machiavélisme et raison d’État, 5.

¹⁹ For broad perspectives of the tensions between intelligence activities and liberal standards in democratic societies, see for example, Peter Gill, Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State (London: Frank Cass 1994); Ian Leigh and Laurence Lustgarten, In From the Cold: National Security and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994); K.G. Robertson, Secrecy and Open Government: Why Governments Want You to Know (London: MacMillan 1999); David Vincent, The Culture of Secrecy, Britain 1832–1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998).

²⁰ See: Michael Herman, ‘Ethics and Intelligence after September 2001’, Intelligence and National Security 19/2 (2004) 342–58; David Omand, ‘Ethical Guidelines in Using Secret Intelligence for Public Security’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19/4 (2006), 613–28; Pierre Lacoste, ‘Responsabilités et éthique des services de renseignement’, Revue Des deux mondes (Paris: Revue des deux mondes April 1996), 55–65.

²¹ Sébastien Laurent, Politiques de l’ombre. État, renseignement et surveillance en France (Paris: Fayard 2009); Sébastien Laurent (ed.), Politiques Du renseignement (Bordeaux: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux 2009); Bertrand Warusfel, ‘Histoire de l’organisation du contre-espionnage français entre 1871 et 1945’, in Maurice Vaisse (ed.), Études sur l’histoire Du renseignement (Paris: Lavauzelle 1998); Bertrand Warusfel, Il n’est point de secret que le temps ne révèle: Études sur l’histoire Du renseignement (Paris: Lavauzelle 1998).

²² Roger Faligot, Jean Guisnel, and Rémi Kauffer, Histoire politique Des services secrets français (Paris: La Découverte 2012).

²³ The term ‘Intelligence Community’ is sort of official in the USA, as it was mentioned in the National Security Act in 1947 and is inscribed in the US Code (50 USCS § 401a). The use of the term is at the same time institutional (a body officially composed of services and agencies) and sociological (the organisations and the people who work in the public intelligence sector). In the United Kingdom, the notion of community refers primarily to the group of individuals who work in the intelligence services, and they refer to the body of organisations as the ‘the UK Intelligence Machinery.’ In France, the term ‘Communauté du Renseignement’ is clearly used in an institutional sense as in the United States.

²⁴ Graham Allison and Morton Halperin, ‘Bureaucratic Politics: A Paradigm and some Implications’, World Politics 24 (spring 1972), 40–79; Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, M. Sterling (ed.) (Washington DC: Brookings Institution 1974). For the competitive model and the question of access to the decision-maker in the American IC, see for example, Olav Riste, ‘The Intelligence-Policy Maker Relationship and the Politicization of Intelligence’, in Gregory Treverton and Wilhelm Agrell (eds.), National Intelligence Systems. Current Research and Future Prospects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009); Christopher Andrew, ‘American Presidents and their Intelligence Communities’, Intelligence and National Security 9/4 (1995), 95–113; Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency (London: Harper Collins 1995).

²⁵ Executive Order 13,470 of 30 July 2008. See: Lauren Clark, ‘Statutory Struggles of Administrative Agencies: The Director of National Intelligence and the Cia in a Post-9/11 World’, Administrative Law Review 62/2 (Spring 2010), 545–72.

²⁶ Michael Herman, Intelligence in peace and war (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996).

²⁷ In that regard this ‘agonistic’ organisational and cultural trait in the intelligence sector may be similar to the whole of French Government’s decision-making which can be seen as full of institutionalized rivalry compared to other traditions such as in the United Kingdom, where there is a strong information sharing culture in Whitehall.

²⁸ Faligot, Guisnel, and Kauffer, Histoire politique Des services secrets français.

²⁹ For example, the Direction de Surveillance du Territoire (DST) and the Renseignements Généraux (RG) did share the same counterterrorism missions. Or the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, external intelligence), the DST and the Direction de la Protection du Secret de Défense (DPSD, the military equivalent of DST) shared the counterespionage missions.

³⁰ Bob De Graaf B and James Nyce, Handbook of European Intelligence Cultures (New York: Rowman and Littlefield 2016); Mark Pythian, Cultures of National Intelligence, Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies (Milton Park: Routledge 2013).

³¹ David Truman, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1951) Ch. 14, ‘The Web of Relationship in the Administrative Process.’

³² Pierre Lacoste (ed.), Approches françaises Du renseignement: Y a-t-il une« culture » nationale? (Paris: Fondation pour les études de défense 1997); Pierre Lacoste (ed.), le renseignement à la française (Paris: Économica 1998); Jean-Claude Cousseran and Philippe Hayez, Renseigner les démocraties, renseigner en démocratie (Paris: Odile Jacob 2015).

³³ Olivier Chopin, La raison d’État et La démocratie, concepts et pratiques (Paris: EHESS 2005) Thèse pour le doctorat en Science politique.

³⁴ Michel Foucault, « Il faut défendre La société », Cours au Collège de France, 1976 (Paris: Seuil 1997).

³⁵ Etienne Thuau, Raison d’Etat et pensée politique À l’époque de Richelieu (Paris: Albin Michel 2000). For an English-speaking presentation of the classical definition of reason of State, see Maurizio Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005).

³⁶ Michel Foucault, ‘Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Criticism of Political Reason’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values II (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 1988), 225–54.

³⁷ The Gendarmerie is at the center of the national antiterrorism and counterterrorism capacity, especially as it runs the UCLAT (Unité de coordination de la lutte anti-terroriste), the central and integrated ‘counterterrorism center’ and one of the two national ‘SWAT’-like units, the GIGN is also defined as an intergovernemental body. See: Franck Foley, Countering terrorism in Britain and France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013).

³⁸ Christian Mouhanna, ‘Police: De la proximité au maintien de l’ordre généralisé?’, in Laurent Muchielly (ed.), La frénésie sécuritaire (Paris: La Découverte 2008).

³⁹ See Douglas Porch, The French Secret Services: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux 1995); translated: Histoire Des services secrets français, 2 tomes (Paris: Albin Michel 1997). See in French: Faligot, Guisnel, and Rémi Kauffer, Histoire politique Des services secrets français. See also for the last three decades: Philippe Hayez, ‘Le renseignement extérieur français depuis 1981. Fragments d’une politique publique’, in Sébastien Laurent (ed.), Politiques Du renseignement (Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux 2009).

⁴⁰ Peter Jackson linked what he observed as the ‘spring of French Intelligence’ to the emergence of national intelligence studies in his seminal essay: Peter Jackson, ‘Intelligence and the state: An emerging “French school” of Intelligence Studies’, Intelligence and National Security 21/6 (2006), 1061–65. Philippe Hayez analysed the first steps of the centralisation process in a conference given at the Oxford Intelligence Group at Nuffield on 21 May 2009: Tribes in need of a flag, the new French intelligence community. He developed his assessment in Philippe Hayez, ‘«Renseignement»: The new French intelligence Policy’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 23 (2010), 474–86.

⁴¹ Académie du renseignement, La communauté française Du renseignement (Paris: Services du Premier ministre 2014), foreword by Alain Zabulon p. 1. We will elaborate later on the new position of the Coordonnateur and the recently established Académie that are at the center of the reform process studies in this paper.

⁴² Jean-Claude Mallet, Défense et Sécurité nationale: le livre blanc (Paris: La documentation Française 2008).

⁴³ JORF n°0111 du 14 mai 2014 page 7968.

⁴⁴ The absence of the Gendarmerie nationale has to be noticed. Central for territorial security (about 80% of the national territory is under its jurisdiction), the Gendarmes are given a ‘general surveillance mission’ (mission de surveillance générale) but are nevertheless excluded from the IC.

⁴⁵ Marceau Long, Balladur Edouard, and Léotard François (eds.), le livre blanc sur La Défense (Paris: La Documentation française 1994).

⁴⁶ Académie du renseignement, La communauté française Du renseignement, op. cit., « La stratégie nationale du renseignement », 3–5.

⁴⁷ About the factors explaining the understudy of French Intelligence in France, compared with other partners such as the US, the UK or even Canada, see our study: Olivier Chopin and Bastien Irondelle, ‘Comparaison franco-britannique de la recherche sur les services de renseignement’, Criminologie 46/2 (Fall 2013), 15–42.

⁴⁸ http://www.ssi.gouv.fr/.

⁴⁹ Nicolas Wuest-Famose even participated in academic forums and published a paper in CF2R, Pour une école française Du renseignement (Paris: Ellipses 2014).

⁵⁰ JORF n°0013 du 16 janvier 2010. The concours d’entrée used to be kept secret and organised separately from the rest of the concours de La fonction publique.

⁵¹ See: Lacoste (ed.), Approches françaises Du renseignement: Y a-t-il une« culture » nationale?; Lacoste (ed.), le renseignement à la française; Laurent (ed.), Politiques Du renseignement; Laurent, Politiques de l’ombre. État, renseignement et surveillance en France.

⁵² RFDA, ‘La réforme constitutionnelle de 2008’, Revue Françaide de Droit Administratif 24/5 (2008) special issue, 861–930.

⁵³ La loi constitutionnelle no 2008–724 du 23 juillet 2008 de modernisation des institutions de la Ve République.

⁵⁴ Everything seems to be paradoxical in that reform and the interpretation that was made of it. In political terms, President Sarkozy’s ambition was to restore the spirit of President De Gaulle’s 1962 ideal when he ‘corrected’ the Constitution by establishing the election of the President directly by the People, after nearly 30 years of ‘instability’ and ‘dysfuctionning’ liked to the ‘cohabitation’ periods. But in order to restore the President’s role and authority, the constitution had to go far from the original ordonancement of the three main poles.

⁵⁵ Bastien Irondelle and Olivier Schmitt, ‘French Strategic Culture’, in Bastian Giegerich, Heiko Biehl, and Alexandra Jonas (eds.), Strategic Cultures in Europe (Munich: VS Verlag 2013), 125–38.

⁵⁶ Jean-Jacques Urvoas and Florian Vadillo, Réformer les services de renseignement français (Paris: Fondation Jean-Jaurès 2011); Jean-Jacques Urvoas, le contrôle parlementaire Des services de renseignement, enfin! (Paris: Fondation Jean-Jaurès 2014) Note n°7.

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Notes on contributors

Olivier Chopin

Olivier Chopin holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His works include Etudier le renseignement, état de l’art et perspectives de recherche he edited for the French ministry of Defense (Études de l’IRSEM 9, 2012), Pourquoi l’Amerique nous espionne ? (Lille, Hikari Éditions Publishing, 2014), and most recently Renseignement et Sécurité, a textbook on intelligence (Paris, Armand Colin Publishing, 2016).