Headlines: Attention, defense secret!
Audio 04:47
Archives of the historical service of Defense in Vincennes.
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By: Sébastien Duhamel Follow
4 min
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He's got some good, that's for sure.
Defense secrecy can protect, but it can also sometimes endanger.
You probably remember Mohamed Merah, author of an attack on a Jewish school in March 2012, murderer of seven people in Toulouse and Montauban?
Do you perhaps also remember Father Jacques Hamel, assassinated in 2016, in his church in Saint-Étienne du Rouvray?
Imagine that these attacks, as dramatic as they were, could probably be avoided.
This is what
Marianne
tells us
this week. Defense secrecy "
delayed the identification
" of Mohamed Merah, for example. A note "
already warned of its dangerousness before the attack
", but it was classified. In the case of Father Jacques Hamel, explains
Marianne
, the intelligence services had "
spotted the threat and identified one of the perpetrators upstream
" but the information, classified there too,
"
circulated too slowly
". We can also cite the case of Amedy Coulibaly. Executor of a policewoman and four hostages at the Hyper Cacher at Porte de Vincennes, in January 2015, he wore "
weapons sold by an informant from the gendarmerie
”.
So "
by what chain did they find themselves in the hands of the killer?"
The exchanges between the trafficker and the gendarmes might say so
”.
But they are - guess what - "
classified
".
The drift and "inflation" of defense secrecy
This is why some denounce the drift of defense secrecy. "
Designed to facilitate the work of the police and intelligence, its heaviness sometimes ends up complicating their task
", deplores
Marianne
. Even intelligence specialists agree: "
the situation is no longer tenable
". Like Pascal Jouary who publishes the book
Secret Défense. The Black Book
. In particular, it proposes the creation of an "
independent body empowered to lift the secrecy on a case-by-case basis
".
He underlines the
“inflation”
of defense secrecy, at all levels, not only in the area of anti-terrorism. He regrets, for example, that
"
the key decisions
"Of the management of the Covid-19 are"
classified for decades
".
Indeed, the deliberations of the Health Defense Council of Emmanuel Macron, who managed this crisis, are normally
"
confidential for the next fifty years
".
And 50 years can be very long!
Behind the scenes of French air defense
The fact remains that defense secrecy is sometimes essential. We are obviously not talking about Eric Ciotti, candidate for the LR nomination for the presidential election, who is selling this week, in
Le Point
, his idea of "French
Guantanamo
" in the Overseas, a sort of new "prison in Cayenne" ". No, ready for take off! This should please our specialist Franck Alexandre and all fans of military issues:
Today in France weekend
takes us behind the scenes of the Air Force. Visit to the National Air Operations Center (CNOA). A "
secret place that is almost never revealed, in the heart of a highly sensitive defense zone
», Tells us the magazine, base 942 Lyon-Mont Verdun. It “
extends over several hectares, like a campus lost in the forest of the Monts d'Or
”. A quiet little town "
with its paved roads, its
1,300 soldiers, its accommodation, its gymnasium, its swimming pool, its canteen
..." But "
the apparent tranquility
" of this base 942 is "
inversely equal to the strategic importance of the place
”, reports
Today in France
because, 135 meters underground, there is also an ultra secure bunker. The heart of operations where military constantly monitor some "
11
000 aircraft plying daily the French sky
», Including drones.
It is also on this site that operations outside of France are managed.
In Cherbourg, the victims of the "Contract of the Century"
As a consequence of a great secret, the press also presents us this week the first victims of the loss of the "
contract of the century
". Those who pay the price after the
canceled sale of submarines to Australia
, those who have since struggled to “overcome”: Naval Group management and employees. It is the magazine of
Echoes
which presents them to us. While Paris and Washington have reconciled, report in Cherboug and the atmosphere is still far from celebrating where the twelve submarines were to be produced, possibly until 2050. "
An unexpected shock
", everything was ready.
On site, the 5,000 employees learned it the same day, like everyone else. "
Ironically,"
underlines
Les Échos Week-end, "
this fatal Wednesday of September 15
", when we learned of the breach of the contract, the French group had just received, in the morning, "
a letter validating the technical definition of project
”. Surreal scene, worthy of a film: that day the site owner and the HRD learned the news "
one hour before going on stage for a show focused precisely on the contract with Australia
" ... and planned with Australians ! Yes, there were already Australian partners there, who also discovered it like everyone else. That evening,
Les Échos
tells us
, they were also several dozen to "
disembark at Bayou
", the local pub.
To drink, to forget… The end of this contract meant for them the loss of their job.
As a result, the next evening, they were even "
twice as likely to drink Pils
" at the counter.
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