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: Birth of a master spy
One day, Bernard Emié escaped a “blue flight”, as the military say, an emergency repatriation for serious misconduct, in shame. There would then have been neither presidential councils, nor prestigious embassies, nor DGSE.
End of 1988, in Washington. A representative of the FBI asks to meet the head of the DGSE station in the United States, a correspondent very officially accredited to the American authorities. He wants to talk to him about Bernard Emié, the brilliant first secretary of the French embassy, aged 30. The latter has just been transferred there from the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Bernard Raimond, where he worked as a technical advisor. While following a Czech spy in Washington, American police officers were surprised to find him in the queue for a gay cinema, just behind Bernard Emié, announced the FBI man. Clearly, the future director of the secret services is accused of spying for the benefit of the Eastern bloc. Photos were taken.
The case is transmitted to Paris; a first analyst from the DGSE endorses the Americans’ version. A second expert opinion is needed to exonerate Emié: the photos are blurry, no one is recognized and the story does not coincide either with the personality of the Frenchman or with the methods of an experienced Eastern spy. The intelligence service concluded at the last minute that it was a set-up by the FBI, reports former DGSE agent Maurice Dufresse, author of this second saving note, in Twenty-five years in the secret service (Flammarion), his memoirs published in 2010.
Young Etienne Dorsay
Until then, Bernard Emié’s career had not suffered any setbacks. He is one of those young people for whom everything succeeds instantly. The Sciences Po competition, after a bit of HEC prep at Henri-IV; the ENA, at the first attempt, integrated at the beginning of 1981. This Parisian from the beautiful neighborhoods, postal code in the 7th arrondissement, did not, however, come from a family of senior civil servants; his father is a business manager, director of a subsidiary of Pernod-Ricard, “with the political ideas that go with it”, smiles Yves Cabana, his classmate at the ENA and his best friend for forty years.
At the time of Mitterrandism soon to be triumphant, the son was no longer left-wing, rather Christian-democratic, he was active in the European Movement at Sciences Po, before leaning towards the social patriotism of Jacques Chirac. In his manners, notably this somewhat stiff posture, this attraction to elegant clothes or his cold humor, something of Etienne Dorsay, the distinguished although sarcastic bourgeois ofAn elephant cheats a lot, played by Jean Rochefort. “Your friend is arrogant,” Yves Cabana already hears, a phrase that has been repeated for four decades.
“Johnny the Boxer”
Nothing to do at the time with the extremism of his brother Jean-Pierre, student of Assas and leader of the GUD nicknamed “Johnny the boxer”, for his propensity to fight with anti-fascists, who will be regional advisor National Front. At the ENA, Bernard was elected student delegate, the only mandate of his career, on a “slightly right-wing” program, as Anne de Danne, a classmate, puts it. His list battles against the third route of access to the ENA, reserved for trade unionists and associations, which Anicet Le Pors, the new communist Minister of the Civil Service, wants. On the board of directors, he neighbors Catherine Colonna, current Minister of Foreign Affairs, then student representative of Force Ouvrière. “Everyone appreciated Bernard, Catherine was more reserved,” remembers Serge Grzybowski, their classmate. “Little Catherine”, Bernard Emié sometimes lets slip, even today, when he talks about the member of the government, with whom he remains on good terms.
With other students, he pleaded in vain for the promotion to bear the name of Louis Delamare, the ambassador to Lebanon assassinated on September 4, 1981. It was Solidarity which won, the young civil servants have socialist hearts. Reserve commissioner in the navy, captivated by the seminar of a young Africanist named Dominique de Villepin, he chose the Quai d’Orsay in 1983. The Gaullist diplomats took him under their wing, he was ministerial advisor twice, to Jean -Bernard Raimond then Alain Juppé, fifteen hours of work a day, just enough time to go play squash at 10 p.m.
The Amman ramp
When Jacques Chirac asked him to join him at the Elysée, as an advisor, in 1995, he chose his zone. The Arab world, its crises, although he does not speak the language. A sort of ultimate challenge for a gifted diplomat. “All the problems in the world are soluble, except those in the Middle East,” Emié used to joke. Alongside President Chirac, he discovered the complicated world of heads of state, Arafat, Bouteflika, Hassan II. The ideal position to shape your career plan. In 1998, Xavier Driencourt, his former colleague at the Juppé cabinet, was about to be appointed to Jordan. The day before, he received a call from Bernard Emié: “The position is for me, you must give up.” The council of ministers cancels the appointment, it is indeed the Parisian who flies to Amman, the first ambassadorial post and the coveted launching pad for all the “Arabists” of the ministry.
Four years to find your style, it will not be that of flamboyant ambassadors, always ahead of a burst of laughter. Emié belongs to the category of sharp diplomats, with ultra-rapid analysis. “What is he going to say to me?” he asks his colleagues before each meeting. The opportunity to adapt your speech to the favorites of your interlocutor. “You might find him stuck… Bernard is a very likeable person, more at second glance than at first. He literally benefits from being known. Once he has made you part of him, he is extremely loyal. flawless”, describes her friend Nathalie Loiseau, now a European MP.
Safe man in Lebanon
On his return in 2002, a new key position, that of director of North Africa and the Middle East at the Quai d’Orsay. Dominique de Villepin, now a minister, mocks his “deputy director’s prose” but invites him to all the meetings, notably those which will lead to the speech refusing the war in Iraq, before the UN.
In 2004, Jacques Chirac needed a reliable man in Lebanon, it would be his faithful Emié. New turning point. On February 14, 2005, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, personal friend of the French president, was assassinated. In the agitation that ensued, “Mr. Ambassador” demonstrated his authority. To the point of sometimes interfering in internal politics. During a meeting of Lebanese parties on the organization of the legislative elections of May 2005, several participants were surprised to hear government leaders refer to the Frenchman’s arbitration: “Let’s ask Bernard.” “Emié was a respected and feared figure. With the American ambassador, they played an almost proconsul role,” remembers Joseph Bahout, professor of political science at the American University of Beirut and former advisor to Lebanese ministers. In July 2006, the French army launched Operation Baliste, the express evacuation of 14,000 people, including 10,000 French. During the maneuver, Emié makes no mistakes, despite the death threats which pushed his family to return to France. His ultra-fluid collaboration with Marc Pimond, the head of the DGSE station in Beirut, is noted.
With him, beware whoever is at fault. The diplomat then knows how to be implacable. In Beirut, part of its security team was one day deprived of a farewell, due to unjustified expense reports. In Turkey, his next post, he immediately brought back a duo of diplomats who had gone on a mission to Van, fifteen hours from the capital. He had not been informed of their departure. “Ah, it was you who refused me my helicopters?” he asks his defense attaché, previously commander of Operation Baliste, responsible for air defense. The soldier had said no to transporting relatives of the Lebanese ambassador to Cyprus. Emié holds it against him for several weeks.
“Emié Networks”
However, most of his colleagues adore him; the senior civil servant knows how to salute the work accomplished and generate emulation. The “Emié networks”, which bring together former advisors, defense attachés and foreign dignitaries, were born in those years. The diplomat always has an hour to devote to them when they request him, including since he heads the DGSE. In London, where he achieved the feat of being nominated for a third ambassadorial post in a row, the maximum being in principle two, he extended his employer network, rubbed shoulders with Samir Assaf, the number 2 of HSBC or Arnaud de Puyfontaine, the current president of Vivendi. His very Anglo-Saxon presence works wonders there. In Algeria, where he served from 2014, he discovered the difficult negotiations with the security forces to obtain the location of jihadist leaders in North Mali, bordering the country of the Fennecs.
On June 26, 2017, it was a very informed neophyte who entered the DGSE, where he was appointed after the usual interview with Emmanuel Macron, and despite the attempt of certain advisors to push Didier Casas, deputy general secretary of Bouygues Telecom. From the outset, the diplomat imposes his political know-how; with journalists who write about the secret services, he has only one request: that his photo not appear on the front page. “Politicians hate it when senior officials take the spotlight,” he explained one day to Etienne Gernelle, the director of Point. In March 2018, Gernelle called him to warn him that he would still put his face on the cover of an issue on espionage: “You are too keen on the job.” A trait that the spymaster takes as a compliment.
To be continued this Wednesday, January 3 at 6 p.m. – Episode 2: Mortier’s strategist.
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