Thierry Wolton has often been a pioneer. In 1986, in The KGB in France, the journalist, former reporter at Releaseis the first to describe the content of the “Farewell affair”, this major counter-espionage operation carried out by the French secret services. He also reveals the betrayal of “Samo”, sub-prefect and advisor to the Paris police prefect, in favor of Czechoslovak intelligence, information confirmed… thirty-eight years later. Thanks to official documents obtained in Prague, journalist Vincent Jauvert implicates Gérard Leconte, his real name.
In 1997, Wolton went to Moscow to consult the newly opened diplomatic archives. He produced a work full of revelations drawn from the best sources on the Kremlin networks in France. At the end of the century, he was once again the first French journalist to consult a summary of the Mitrokhine archives, these documents from Russian intelligence brought by a defector to the United Kingdom. There he discovered the names of many French spies in the service of the KGB, contacted those interested, and planned to write a book about them. Alas, the data are not yet available at the University of Cambridge, Wolton has no proof of what he is saying, his publisher urges him to give up.
Nevertheless, in forty years, Thierry Wolton has established himself as one of the best experts in espionage in France. In his sunny apartment in the south of Paris, where he is used to writing his opuses, he received L’Express at length to analyze the porosity of power circles to the maneuvers of Putin’s men and the challenges posed today by carried out by the Beijing regime. He also entrusted us with part of his discoveries in the Mitrokhine archives, allowing cross-checking and new confirmations. Let him be thanked for that.
L’Express: You were the first French journalist to document the extent of Russian espionage in France. Why have the KGB and its successors always wanted to penetrate French political power?
Thierry Wolton: This was especially true after World War II. In these times of the Cold War, our country embodied for Moscow the weak link in Western democracies, with the hope of using it as a pivot to influence Europe and especially to divide the Western front by pitting Paris against Washington. For example, for the Soviet power the decision taken in 1966 by General de Gaulle to withdraw from the integrated command of NATO was considered a great victory for the influence operations carried out by the KGB in the political class of the era. For the KGB, France was an ideal country to serve as a sounding board. Neither defeated Germany, nor Italy emerging from fascism, nor Franco’s Spain could play this role. As for Great Britain, it looked too west, to the Atlantic side as de Gaulle said, to have an influence on continental Europe.
How can we explain the porosity of French power circles to Russian espionage? Is there a French specificity?
Historical, ideological, political and psychological factors have favored this porosity. The Revolution of 1789, particularly the period of the Jacobin terror of 1793-94, represented a model for Lenin. In short, there existed between France and the communist world a “revolutionary brotherhood” which favored the penetration of the interests of the “socialist camp”. The “fellow travelers”, these intellectuals who supported the Soviet regime in the name of the communist ideal, were particularly numerous in our country. They helped prepare the appropriate ideological ground for this penetration. The old Franco-American rivalry has also served as a political substrate for this porosity. Paris and Washington have always competed in terms of revolutionary paternity, so to speak. Across the Atlantic, the revolutionary upheavals ended in 1783, in France they began in 1789. In our country, so proud of its history, so convinced of having opened a new path for humanity, the American prevalence has always was difficult to accept.
“Choosing the Soviet camp was choosing the other great winner of Nazism without being indebted to the Americans”
The Soviet Union was able to take advantage of this memorial rivalry to seduce the French elite, playing on a sort of historical revenge to take on the American “big brother”. Choosing the Soviet camp was choosing the other great winner of Nazism without being indebted to the Americans. This is the psychological factor. In other words, the feeling of inferiority felt following this global conflict favored Soviet designs in France against the United States. Those who fell for it hoped to have more influence on the international scene. Gaullist politics, in particular, bet on this.
Is this anti-Americanism still alive?
Much less than in the post-war years. At the time, anti-Americanism was also fueled by Washington’s desire to decolonize. The loss of the French empire in Asia and on the African continent was partly a consequence of this American policy. This context once again favored Soviet penetration into France. In many minds, the enemy remained Washington rather than Moscow. Then, anti-imperialism took over. The Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s was a good breeding ground for Soviet influence with the good Viet Minh on one side and the evil Yankee on the other. Today, this old background of rivalry persists between the two countries, even if France and the United States are clearly in the same camp. However, the European interests that Paris defends may clash with the interests of Washington, which has its eyes turned more towards Asia. THE “Make America Great Again” that Trump advocates will inevitably have repercussions on transatlantic relations. The enemies of Western democracies will seek to exploit this context, first and foremost Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China.
Venality, ideology, compromise, ego… We know the Russians are likely to play on all these fronts to convince their targets to betray. Is there a lever they prefer?
Compromise and ego are probably the preferred methods. To compromise someone (sex, corruption, etc.) is to be sure of being able to hold them, to blackmail them, to manipulate them. Flattering is also an effective means because human pride is universal. For example, making an agent believe that he will single-handedly save peace in the world makes him proud. On the other hand, ideology is struggling. The Soviet regime claimed to work for the happiness of the world, Putin’s Russia wants to reconstitute a barrier that protects it from the rest of the world. As for money, it is always an effective means. Espionage takes place over a long period of time. Before any recruitment, the “target” is carefully studied, to bring into play what has the greatest chance of success.
The USSR recruited many agents at the end of the Second World War, driven by its status as winner and bulwark against Nazism. What arguments are Putin’s men relying on today to seduce the elites?
Moscow has always played on traditional Franco-Russian relations, Orthodox brotherhood, anti-Americanism, political sympathy. Nowadays, it is rather the fear of migration, the “decadence” of Western morals which attracts while Moscow wants to be a bastion of conservatism. Curious changes: in the past, recruitment was done in the name of progressivism, today mainly by playing on fears of the future, on the preservation of yesterday’s world. Regardless, Russian espionage uses the same methods as the KGB of yesteryear when it comes to recruiting and serving Moscow’s cause.
With the digital revolution, how has Russian espionage evolved?
If the human factor remains important – recruiting the right agent in the right place remains the basics of the intelligence world – new technologies are changing the situation: listening, surveillance, intelligence collection, influence, everything it has evolved. We can capture and monitor everything, or almost everything, these days, a lot of scientific and technical information circulates on the Internet and social networks offer fantastic means of manipulation. From now on, the agent of influence is Mr. Everyman, the Internet users who peddle false information and rumors by the millions, who hunt in packs against or for this or that opinion, all animated by algorithms which bring them together without their knowledge. Open societies, democracies have become more vulnerable. It is no longer just a question of protecting ourselves from foreign interference but of preventing foreign interference from proliferating through multiple channels where it is difficult to know who is manipulating them.
“From now on, the agent of influence is Mr. Everyman”
Is Russian intelligence in France as dynamic today as before? the war in Ukraine ? What are his priorities?
The war in Ukraine complicated the task of the SVR, the heir to the KGB. For an agent serving Moscow, it is not very honorable to be on the side of the invader. That said, the Kremlin can always play on fear, claiming that the Ukrainians must be brought to negotiate or risk an ever more deadly war, with a recurring nuclear threat. In a word, let’s help Moscow win its case – a partition of Ukraine and its neutrality – otherwise we will force Putin to make a misfortune. Many Western ears are sensitive to this pseudo-pacifist propaganda. No need for agents of influence to make an impression in this sense. Isn’t peace a universal desire of humanity?
Which country worries you the most today in terms of espionage?
China, undoubtedly. It has the necessary means, proven ideological software, and sufficient troops to achieve its ends. Having become the second power in the world thanks to Western investments and technological plundering, the Chinese party-state does not hide its desire to put an end to the Western influence which has reigned over the world since 1945. Beijing wants to impose its own world order, inspired by Leninist methods of governance. The anti-democratic discourse of the Chinese Communist Party appeals to a large number of countries whose leaders fear nothing more than the freedom that could intoxicate the minds of their citizens. In addition to the classic shadow war, there is the threat from space and that of digital technology with its formidable capacities for massive manipulation. It’s still the same war, started more than a century ago, but using new, very efficient means.
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