DGSE Canteen: French Intelligence Secrets Revealed – L’Express

October 2008. Pierre Brochand leaves his post as director of the DGSE. In his farewell speech, he allows himself advice to his agents: “Reserve manipulation for your sources”. The warning is aimed at internal intrigues… especially in the canteen. Because the secret service canteen is a place of power, discreet but unavoidable.

In The Legends Officethe cult series from Canal+, the spies happily exchange indiscretions in the cafeteria. A true habit, according to certain memories of old people. Jean-Pierre Augé, former head of the Africa sector, describes it as a “privileged place for confidences”, in Africa Farewellwhile Pierre Siramy, former head of department, mentions, in 25 years in the secret services this “strategic place of all the gossip, the only non-partitioned place of the DGSE”.

Because if the 3,000 French spies present every day at the headquarters of the secret service, boulevard Mortier in Paris, are scattered in different buildings, with no discussion on files, in the canteen, located on the ground floor of the Tourelles barracks, all the staff meet. In 2017, work in the refectory led to the emergency construction of a temporary building at the adjacent Henri-Pâté stadium… an initiative attacked by local residents. Justice will validate the “temporary canteen” of spies.

“Have a clearer view of alliances”

Olivier Mas, former handling officer at the DGSE, devotes several lines of his first opus, Profession spyat the sole place of socialization of the intelligence service. “There is a lot to learn during the lunch break. It is the ideal place to have a slightly clearer view of the alliances that are made and unmade between agents and hierarchs,” he writes. Even to find out casually about a current affair, even if the habit remains of “demarcating” the anecdotes, that is to say of hiding the country or the service concerned.

In this administration where even the exhaustive organizational chart is secret, one can also discover the existence of a discreet unit, like those of the very sensitive mission service, or even campaign unofficially for an assignment abroad.

In the large room with brown walls, lit by neon, we network in tables of two or ten. Marc P., former director of intelligence, is known to take advantage of the feasts to be introduced to young talents, whom he will enroll in his affinity group. André Le Mer, director of intelligence between 2004 and 2009, systematically eats lunch alone, which discredits him in the eyes of ambitious people. A theater that will soon be obsolete: in 2031, the DGSE will move to Fort Neuf de Vincennes, where “numerous and varied” catering spaces await, opening onto the large gardens”, reports Intelligence Online.

Security requires, the canteen staff will, as always, be hired internally. In the early 1950s, Dora and Nina K., Romanian refugees, were serving in the secret service kitchen… when American counterespionage accused them of informing their country’s intelligence. There is no sub-spy.