Why is Paris considered the capital of spies?

In the streets of Paris hide thousands of spies who meet each other every day.

In a special issue, "Le Parisien" examines the history of the great secret agents and their relations with the French capital.

To decipher these anecdotes on intelligence, Bruno Fuligni, historian and contributor in this issue, was the guest of "Culture-Media" on Europe 1, Wednesday.

ANALYSIS

Paris and its narrow streets, its Haussmann buildings, its compact crowd which crosses which crosses it every day… and its spies.

The French capital is indeed an ideal place for secret agents who wish to hide and collect all kinds of information.

On the occasion of the release of the special edition of the

Parisian

"Le Paris des espions et des agents secrets" in partnership with Europe 1, the historian Bruno Fuligni, one of the contributors to this special issue, was invited to discuss it. in the

Culture-Médias program

. 

Paris, a "wonderful labyrinth"

Paris is a capital.

It is therefore logical that we find within it the headquarters of the French secret services and foreign embassies.

But the city is also "cosmopolitan", according to Bruno Fuligni, who considers it an asset "to conceal all kinds of clandestine activities".

"Even coming from very far away, you can easily go unnoticed in the crowd, set up an association, a society which can be the bastard, that is to say the false nose of an underground organization", he continues. .

Thus, the spies "cross and intersect as well in the chic districts as in the working-class districts", underlines the historian.

The streets of the French capital constitute "a marvelous labyrinth with its covered passages, its buildings with double entry, its large stations and its museums", describes Bruno Fuligni.

A dream playground for spies who can meet discreetly and cut spinning mills.

The historian takes the example of the Père Lachaise cemetery where no one "will be interested in someone who comes to bow to a grave" during a secret meeting.

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Turning point during the Cold War

It was also in Paris that the Cold War took a decisive turn.

In 1983, a Soviet intelligence officer, Vladimir Vetrov, approached the French counter-espionage, the DST, the ancestor of the DGSI.

He will send nearly 3,000 pages of documents to the French.

His code name: "Farewell".

President Mitterrand, at the start of his first term, transmits the information to US President Ronald Reagan.

Operation Farewell is a great success: it allows Americans to realize that the Eastern bloc is technologically behind. 

The Eiffel Tower, "the most famous spy"

But for Bruno Fuligni, there is no photo: "The most famous Parisian spy is the Eiffel Tower".

Initially, the famous Parisian monument was built for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, but "it has no particular use", explains the historian.

It was even intended to be destroyed in 1909. But intelligence saved it, thanks to the officer Gustave Ferrier, passionate about new technologies.

He is testing wireless message transmission, with financial assistance from Gustave Eiffel.

And it works.

The Eiffel Tower can even capture enemy messages.

"At the time of the Great War, she will save Paris", launches Bruno Fuligni.

The Eiffel Tower thus makes it possible to anticipate and even avoid certain bombings.

It is even possible "to send false instructions in German to the pilots of the zeppelins so that they drop their bombs in beet fields instead of in Parisian districts", he adds.

And all of this is made possible by the thousands of agents who work in the dungeons next to the Tower.

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- Four Parisian walks in the footsteps of the great spies

This "real anthill", as Bruno Fuligni calls it, is even used for the arrest of Mata Hari. A spy during the Great War, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, whose real name is, is a hatter's daughter, born in the Netherlands. At the start of the 20th century, she married and moved to Indonesia, a former Dutch colony. She learns traditional dances there. When she arrives in Paris, she will then use her skills as a dancer to seduce Parisian high society. Gradually, it transmits information on behalf of the Germans. On February 13, 1917, she was arrested and taken to the Saint-Lazare women's prison. Mata Hari is then executed. What confused the spy in her trial was actually a message she sent to Berlin. A message captured by the famous Eiffel Tower.