British writer and director Ian Fleming was inspired by the character of his famous James Bond movie, known as "The Spy 007", from his work in the British Secret Service during a period of his life, but the world of espionage may be somewhat different from the adventures of the movie hero who adored the masses.
Since the end of the 19th century, Paris has become the world's capital of espionage, harboring between 10,000 and 15,000 secret agents, most of them from America, China, Russia, Israel and Turkey, according to the documentary "Secrets of Spies" by directors Nicolas Bourgoyne and Amandine Stelia.
Women and men roaming the streets of the French capital received special training to integrate into society under false identities to carry out activities out of sight without any direct or official contact with the embassy or intelligence officers.
A mysterious suit for Paris may make those who visit it not only see it as the capital of lovers, but also as the capital of spies.
The French Military School in the 1st arrondissement of Paris (the island)
shadow war
The SVR, or formerly KGB, was established in 1992 and its primary tasks are to deal with foreign intelligence, political, economic and scientific matters.
As for the Military Intelligence Unit of the Ministry of Defense, it is the arm of the Russian military intelligence "GRU" (GRU).
In Paris, it is easy to find the offices of the two agencies, specifically on Le Marichaux Street in the 16th arrondissement, where the headquarters of the Russian embassy is located, which is built with authentic Soviet concrete and antennas on the roofs represent the embassy’s ears in every corner of the French capital and the Ile-de-France region.
In the fall of 2020, Russian diplomat Valentin Vladimirovich Zakharov, a member of Russian intelligence who was holding a position in the economic mission of the Russian embassy, was expelled after the PSD caught him spying while handing money to an executive of a large French technology company specializing in artificial intelligence.
Moscow responded by expelling a French diplomat from its territory.
Among the espionage and commercial business, Zakharov was a member of the board of a private mining company based in St Petersburg and a secret agent of Russian intelligence, such as President Vladimir Putin who was a former member of the KGB.
A stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower and an annex to the Elysee Palace, where the aides of the President of the Republic reside, the Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral of the Moscow Patriarchate was opened in October 2016, and Putin visited it about 5 years ago.
The gate of the Elysee Palace in the French capital (the island)
Paris... the den of spies
The architecture and streets of Paris offer different dens that attract intelligence services, such as the exits and corridors of the Paris metro, which make it the most crowded metropolis in the world.
And the Paris metro is not the only place for spies to conduct their secret interviews, as churches - which everyone can enter freely - are an ideal venue for the exchange of classified information.
In December 2014, members of the General Directorate of Internal Security documented the handover of documents between a Russian spy and a French weapons engineer at the church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres.
Sergei Zhirnov, a former KGB agent, says in the documentary "Secrets of Spies" that if we wanted to choose a spy nest in Paris, it would be the headquarters of UNESCO because it includes at least 182 permanent delegates from each country, such as the United Nations in New York and the Palais des Nations in Geneva, and the United Nations in Vienna that are used by spies as cover."
Jirnoff points out that the French government placed cameras in the vicinity of the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and rented some apartments overlooking the street to track the movement of these spies.
One of the streets of Paris, the capital of lights, where thousands of spies meet (Al-Jazeera)
In a city of 157 embassies, each with a legitimate right to do whatever they want inside, the United States made some changes to the roof of its embassy in Paris in 2005, adding an L-shaped space with antennas and a state-of-the-art listening system. Two steps from Place de la Concorde and the Elysee Palace.
Which can be linked to information released by the American Edward Snowden in 2013, which revealed that the personal phones of French Presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande were wiretapped on a large scale by the US National Security Agency "NSA".
In turn, China is not absent from the Paris arena, and has 6 official addresses in the capital that provide services for cultural, economic, consular and scientific affairs.
It can be said that its intelligence power is largely focused on cyber espionage.
For example, but not limited to, you use LinkedIn to build close relationships with French officials to obtain information.
The French Military School in the 1st arrondissement of Paris (the island)
Settlement and assassinations
If Paris is a symbol of human rights and a haven for political refugees, it is also the scene of bloody scores settling under the supervision of foreign intelligence services.
In October 1965, the prominent Moroccan leftist dissident Mehdi Ben Barka was kidnapped in front of the "Lib" restaurant on Saint-Germain Street, and was killed in a villa in the south of the French capital, and his body is still hidden today.
As well as the assassination of the Palestinian artist and fighter, Muhammad Boudia, in the Sixth District in Paris by the Israeli Mossad in June 1973.
Hotels also represent an opportunity and an exceptional office for the work of spies, in a city visited by millions of tourists from all over the world, to monitor the movements of foreign heads of state, ministers, and even political opponents and owners of major companies. There is even a special branch called “Hotels” in the French General Directorate of External Security “DG” SE" (DGSE).
For example, the defected former director of South Korean intelligence was assassinated in 1979 at the luxurious Ritz Hotel on the famous Place Vendome, the former headquarters of German colonial spying.
In addition, a team of the Israeli intelligence agency (Mossad) settled in a Paris hotel to prepare for the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the leaders of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in January 2010 to carry it out more than 5,000 km away in Dubai.
In 2013, 3 Kurdish activists, Fidan Dogan, Sakina Kansız and Leyla Soylemez, were shot in the head with a semi-automatic pistol.
At the time, the French police arrested Omar Gounay, who asked to communicate with the Turkish consulate in particular, according to the victims' lawyer, Antoine Coty.
The Russian Holy Trinity Cathedral in the French capital (the island)
Espionage in France .. a rich history
Espionage developed internally and externally in the 17th century during the reign of King Louis 14, as he used his diplomats as secret agents, and used women to seduce men of power.
At that time, the state became a major power on the European continent, and led the Catholic states.
Before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the country began developing elaborate espionage networks that stretched from Russia to the east and England to the north.
Among the famous spies was Chevalier Dion, who had androgynous traits that made him suitable as a male and female secret agent.
Indeed, he played a woman for more than 33 years to get into the Russian court.
The United States Embassy in the French capital, located near the Elysee Palace (Al-Jazeera)
The French Revolution constituted a source of great fear for the monarchies in Europe, but outside powers found it a golden opportunity to infiltrate the French depth, and Emmanuel Henry Louis Alexandre was one of the most prominent of these clients.
He initially supported the revolution and became an early member of the National Constitutional Assembly formed after the overthrow of the French monarchy (Bourbon).
Then the Doseme office was established after the Napoleonic wars, and it was the agency responsible for French military intelligence and espionage until 1940 when France fell to the Germans.
One of its most important elements was the Dutch Mata Hari, a double agent who was sent to spy on Germany but later spied on France.
After World War II, France established the Directorate General of External Security to serve as MI6 in Britain.
She achieved remarkable successes such as accurately predicting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, exposing the largest technological spy network in Europe, as well as being able to locate Russian intelligence officers during the Cold War thanks to Soviet agent Vladimir Vetrov who gave her thousands of secret documents.