The American media Politico nicknamed him “Macron’s pal”: Macron’s friend. For six and a half years, he was one of the five most powerful men in the Republic, much more influential than most ministers, say those who knew him. The keeper of the most sensitive state secrets and the occult advisor to the president. The head of clandestine diplomacy and the hub of defense advice at the Elysée. The man behind hidden missions in Lebanon, Algeria, Turkey, Belarus… The friend of William Burns, the director of the CIA, and the attraction of Le Siècle, the Parisian private club of which he is a member. On January 9, Bernard Emié will leave his post as director of the DGSE. Fired after being revered. It was time to tell his story, and that of his years at the head of a special service that he transformed.
EPISODE 1 – DGSE, the fall of a master spy: Bernard Emié, the story of an extraordinary rise
Episode 2: Mortier’s strategist
September 2019. Yannick Dehée, founder of Nouveau Monde Editions, passes through the porticos of Boulevard Mortier, in Paris, at the DGSE headquarters. He is invited to present Enigma. Or how the Allies managed to break the Nazi code, in front of the technical management of the secret service. The work was written by Dermot Turing, the nephew of the British mathematician who first succeeded in deciphering Nazi ciphers. “The director !” shouts the bellman when Bernard Emié enters the amphitheater with the editor. When he discovers the computer spies, Dehée is stunned: “Kids! There were people barely adults, hooded sweaters, long hair, dyed hair.” Far from the image of the muscular soldier with close-cropped hair.
When he arrived at the DGSE, Bernard Emié found a secret service in the midst of change. And huge expectations. “You are going to get on a TGV. The speed is only going to increase. You are going to be asked to be omniscient about all the crises in the world”, warns General Jean-Pierre Palasset, his chief of staff, on the day of he took office on June 26, 2017. The threats have evolved since the mandate of his predecessor, Bernard Bajolet. “The Bajolet years were marked by Daesh, the attacks. Bernard Emié’s period is finer, characterized by an acceleration and multiplication of crises,” describes General Palasset to L’Express.
DGSE-DRM teams
In Mortier, Bernard Emié finds his dear Marc Pimond, secret agent crossed in Beirut, now director of intelligence. With this counter-terrorism expert, Emié continues the fight against jihadism, with several successes. On September 16, 2021, he stood alongside Florence Parly, the Minister of the Armed Forces, to announce at a press conference the elimination by drone of Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, the founder of the Daesh subsidiary in the Sahel. Information from secret agents made it possible to locate him. The drone strike was ordered by special forces. Collaboration between the various secret services and the army has increased considerably in recent years. Emié and Parly form an astonishing duo; the minister does not hesitate to take notes during their bi-monthly meeting, she easily puts up with this master spy who takes up a lot of space, especially since the politician’s chief of staff, Martin Briens, is a veteran of the plant, director of strategy from 2016 to 2017, who remains very informed of Mortier news. With Sébastien Lecornu, the minister since 2022, the relationship is more distant; she remains cordial, the advisors invariably explain.
“I want to know if you will be able to work together,” Emmanuel Macron also asked each of the candidates for the positions of intelligence directors in 2017. The director of the DGSE is involved in this rapprochement. With the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DRM), joint teams are formed several times, in Balard, at the Paris headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, or in Mortier. Bernard Emié personally and regularly calls the director, whether it is General Jean-François Ferlet, until 2021, or General Eric Vidaud, during his short mandate of seven months. “I am distressed by your departure,” assures him the spymaster when the senior officer is dismissed due to disagreement with the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, in April 2022. The complicity continues with his successor, General Jacques Langlade de Montgros.
“What are your successes?”
It is only the authorship of the information reported to the political authorities that causes some grimaces among the military, the director of the Box being sometimes suspected of keeping the most sensitive elements to communicate them directly to the President of the Republic. “There are things that come from the Americans and they don’t always specify it,” grumbles a former director of an intelligence service who worked alongside him. But it is really only with General Christophe Gomart, director of the DRM until the end of June 2017, that relations are tempestuous. “What are your successes?”, the senior officer provokes in public, on June 22, 2022, in the gardens of the Hôtel des Invalides, during the annual evening of the association of defense journalists. “You don’t know anything about it,” snaps Bernard Emié back. Since then, the two men have ignored each other.
Meetings in Marigny
With the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), the era of the “war of services” seems definitively outdated; Faced with the terrorist threat, no one plays tough. “He is excellent,” replies Bernard Emié when we mention his counterpart Nicolas Lerner, without knowing that the director of internal intelligence will replace him on December 20, 2023. The two spymasters see each other regularly, including a meeting at three every six months, with the intelligence coordinator. Another unchanging meeting since 2017: the monthly summit of the six bosses of the secret services at the Hôtel de Marigny, in this annex of the Elysée which houses the coordinator’s offices. For an hour and a half, the spy chiefs discuss a specific agenda.
Once or twice a year, Emmanuel Macron personally hosts this meeting, which then takes the name of the national intelligence council. During the year 2020, Bernard Emié strongly insisted that no State service subscribe to the Israeli software Pegasus, capable of hacking any phone but too insecure in terms of independence vis-à-vis the Mossad. The President of the Republic decides in this direction at the end of the year. More careful. The scandal broke out in July 2021: the numbers of the French head of state, Edouard Philippe and fourteen ministers were targeted, some by Morocco. Since the appointment of prefect Pascal Mailhos as coordinator, in January 2023, another moment of exchange regularly brings together French spymasters after their monthly meeting: a lunch at the Elysée classified as defense secret, a more relaxed setting for pursuing delicate discussions. No attack planned from abroad has taken place in France since November 13, 2015.
“You will end up in prison”
To assert himself internally, in the face of sometimes solidly established baronies, Benard Emié has his method. “An iron fist in a steel glove,” sums up one of his former deputy directors. Each error is severely punished, often by being put in the closet. “He is not satisfied with half-answers, some have learned this the hard way. But if he esteems you, he will follow you all your life,” specifies General Palasset. Be careful not to disappoint him. Jean-François Lhuillier experiences it. Former advisor to Bernard Emié at the Jordanian embassy, this retired DGSE agent is going to Mortier, in April 2023, to present his book The Man from Tripoli (Mareuil), an account of his years in Libya on behalf of the intelligence service. “You risk prison, Jean-François,” the director scolds him, furious that the work describes the functioning of the Box. On October 3, 2023, Lhuillier was placed in police custody and then indicted for breach of defense secrets. Richard Volange underwent the same treatment on September 15. He published Spy, forty-four years at the DGSE (Talent Editions), his memoirs, in May. “The decision was popular internally. Among the existing agents, there is a cult of secrecy and people are fed up with veterans using the central office for their promotion,” notes a former colonel of the Boîte.
The ransom of Legends Office, this TV series wanted by Bernard Bajolet and which stimulates applications to the DGSE. Bernard Emié continues the dynamic, praising his secret service whenever he can, in front of students at ENA, at Sciences Po, or in front of think tanks, such as the Montaigne Institute or the Bilderberg group. One day, he even showed Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, around his offices. “Bernard Emié has opted for an active public relations policy which serves his service, by breaking down barriers,” greets prefect Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, intelligence coordinator from 2017 to 2020. The openness also concerns journalists. Several times, the director general discreetly received reporters in his private room on Boulevard Mortier, for a guaranteed discussion without classified information. On the condition that they do not mention it in their articles.
Putin Challenge
The number of candidates is increasing, often with the equivalent of 100 contenders for two positions in the competition. The center is having more difficulty retaining its talents. Between 500 and 700 agents leave the service each year, or around 10% of the workforce. “Thirty-year-olds can no longer tolerate hierarchical stacks,” Emié frequently observes. From 2021, the spymaster imagines a reform of the DGSE. Exit the major directorates, which over time have become almost autonomous states within a state. Marc Pimond must leave his post for a mission in Asia. Instead, around ten transversal mission centers are created, in Africa, the Sahel, Russia – with the ambition of investing in the close entourage of Vladimir Putin, a no man’s land history in the power plant.
Another of these poles concerns economic intelligence. Bernard Emié has made this issue a priority. Several major contracts obtained by French companies would have been thanks to the assistance of the service, sources close to management say. Secondments to large private companies are encouraged. The new director of research and operations of the DGSE thus moved to Total in 2018. With the multinational, this secret agent notably took care of investments between France and Nigeria.
In the meantime, Bernard Emié has also launched another project, even more ambitious. In May 2021, he obtained from Emmanuel Macron the move of the DGSE to Fort Neuf de Vincennes, in ultra-modern premises. The project will cost 1.4 billion euros. It will provide more comfort to 7,000 increasingly cramped agents at Mortier, designed for fewer than 4,000 employees. Above all, it has an immense advantage: it protects technical intelligence within the DGSE and nip in the bud any desire to create an agency specializing in computer interceptions, like the American NSA. The new premises must be delivered in 2028. Some are already imagining the name of the residence where the general director will have his office. It could be called the Bernard Emié building.
To be continued this Thursday, January 4 at 6 p.m. – Episode 3: the missi dominici Of the president.
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