Zoom - François Waroux : Mémoires d'un officier traitant de la DGSE
Officier traitant à la DGSE durant 20 ans, François Waroux lève le voile sur la réalité de ceux que l'on appelle les "espions". Dans son ouvrage "James Bond n'existe pas", il révèle les méthodes de surveillance, les manipulations par les agents, les techniques de filature, le travail sous couverture, les méthodes de chantage. Il confie aussi les conflits moraux d'un homme des services secrets amené à faire taire sa conscience pour servir son pays. En tant que spécialiste de l'espionnage industriel et du renseignement politique, il a été envoyé en mission en Éthiopie, au Sénégal, en Tunisie ou au Pakistan. Sous une fausse identité ou intégré en ambassade sous couverture, ce Saint-Cyrien fut confronté aux dictatures africaines, au fondamentalisme islamiste ou aux arrière-cuisines des grands groupes internationaux. Pour pousser un agent étranger à trahir son pays ou inciter un employé à fournir des documents sensibles, un membre des services secrets doit savoir mentir, tromper, voler, tricher... Un témoignage rare et unique sur un métier qui fascine et sur lequel les idées reçues sont nombreuses.
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00:00 [Music]
00:06 Hello everyone, welcome to our Zoom today,
00:08 with François Varou.
00:10 Hello sir.
00:11 Hello.
00:12 Hello.
00:13 François Varou, you are a graduate of Saint-Cyr,
00:15 you have been an officer and a traitor for 20 years at the SDEC,
00:19 then at the DGSE.
00:21 The SDEC is the ancestor of the DGSE.
00:23 The DGSE is the French Foreign Information Services,
00:27 General Directorate of Foreign Security,
00:29 and you publish this book, "James Bond n'existe pas,
00:33 mémoire d'un officier traitant".
00:36 You don't like this term "espion",
00:38 the exact term in French is "officier traitant".
00:41 And besides, you give a definition in your book, François Varou,
00:47 "a illegally dressed robber who must know how to lie, cheat, steal and cheat".
00:53 But what are the values that must drive an officer traitant in his inner fort?
00:59 First of all, I think, and we learn it during our training,
01:05 we must show a lot of empathy.
01:08 If we want to manipulate a person, the key word is empathy, first.
01:13 Secondly, we must, if possible, have been, or before, have done theater.
01:20 Because we often build a second person.
01:24 – It was your case, you did theater in your youth.
01:27 – Yes, yes, yes, besides, I'm not the only one to say it,
01:29 former directors of this service have already expressed this phenomenon,
01:36 finally, to have done theater to be a good officer traitant.
01:41 Because if you make a mess in a play by Moller,
01:46 if you want to be applauded, if you are applauded, for example,
01:50 it means that you have been a good officer, a good…
01:53 – A good actor and a good actor.
01:55 – So it means you are well dubbed, if you want.
01:58 Then we'll talk about schizophrenia, if you want.
02:00 But at home, the difference is that you have to be good,
02:03 when you are under cover or under people, you have to be good,
02:06 except that we are not applauded, we are unknown, we are everywhere.
02:11 That's the big difference.
02:13 – And then you also talk about your patriotism
02:16 and your sense of dignity in your career.
02:20 – Yes, but that's when you're a soldier, it's not new.
02:23 I mean, it's even our way of being.
02:25 – Yes, it's more your military side than being an agent for the State.
02:30 – Yes, absolutely, yes, but for me it's not a problem.
02:33 I mean, this patriotic side, then my parents, my father was an officer too,
02:38 he did his SIR, my grandfather, my great-grandfather,
02:41 I also have a son who recently entered the Naval School.
02:47 Well, no, he has the same gallant as me, he is a ship captain.
02:52 And I also have a nephew who has just entered the Naval School.
02:56 So we are bathed in a military culture, let's say,
03:00 so patriotic, which is natural for us.
03:04 – Are you sure, François Varou,
03:07 during your 20 years as a traitor officer in the French Foreign Intelligence Services,
03:12 that you have actually and indeed always served France?
03:16 – Of course.
03:17 – Serving, I mean, you also say the service of the State and the service of France.
03:23 – For me it's the same thing, I don't see the difference so much.
03:27 – No, but maybe some politicians at the head of the State
03:32 don't serve the interests of France.
03:35 – As a soldier, I have never done politics, let's say, on the field.
03:41 But for patriotism, of course, there is no doubt.
03:46 – So you say in your book "James Bond does not exist"
03:50 your entry to the SDEC, the French Foreign Intelligence Service,
03:54 how were you prepared for the field experience?
04:00 – The field that is specific to the officer-traitor?
04:04 – Yes.
04:05 – Well, I was prepared during a one-year training at the DGSE,
04:11 at the SDEC at the time, we will say the Central for this matter.
04:15 Well, yes, yes, we learn first, if we had not already,
04:21 to increase our empathy, because I talked about it earlier,
04:25 you have to love the human kind, so to speak, to be able to manipulate it.
04:31 So to manipulate it, you have to understand it.
04:34 So you have to use means of, I was talking about empathy,
04:39 but in any case of understanding the other, in his habits, in his flaws,
04:43 in his attitude, in what he likes, in the apprehension of certain themes
04:50 of everyday life, etc.
04:52 Does he like red? Does he like white? In the end, there are colors.
04:55 Everything, everything.
04:56 It is often said that to start manipulating someone,
05:04 it is good to see him, to place him in his work environment.
05:10 If his office is black and dark and gray,
05:13 it normally influences his character.
05:15 On the contrary, if the walls are clear, etc.
05:18 it is already a clue for us.
05:21 Here, for example, we are in black and green.
05:23 Well, I know why green, but if it was black,
05:26 it's weird, what do they like?
05:28 The darkness, but there is probably a reason.
05:31 - It's for technical reasons.
05:33 - Of course, but he understands well for green, absolutely.
05:37 - And so, you say that whatever his social status,
05:40 his degree of intelligence or his experience,
05:43 anyone can be the subject of manipulation.
05:46 - Of course.
05:47 - What were your techniques in time, officer?
05:49 - I will answer by a bias.
05:51 Look, the sects.
05:53 How is it that sects, which have nothing religious,
05:57 the sects manage to bring in professors,
06:02 scientists, doctors in science, etc.
06:06 It happens.
06:07 They are not idiots anyway.
06:09 Well, they are still ...
06:11 They are also manipulated by techniques specific to these sects.
06:16 We agree on that.
06:17 Well, your question was how ...
06:19 - The manipulation techniques that you used during your ...
06:23 What is it?
06:25 - Ah, the manipulation techniques.
06:27 Well, it's been a long time, it's been a while.
06:32 We are trained, we develop our empathy,
06:36 for example, by studies of cases.
06:40 So, we are given a film, for example,
06:42 and we say, "What do you think of the attitude of such a person?"
06:46 With a specialist, with a psychiatrist or a psychologist,
06:49 rather a psychiatrist.
06:50 We read texts and we are asked to analyze them or synthesize them.
06:56 That's it.
06:57 So we do a lot of case studies
07:00 to be able to, in the face of a precise, given and real situation,
07:05 well, we can find ways to ...
07:09 - To turn someone over, yes.
07:10 - Not right away, to do the environment first.
07:13 And then, thanks to this environment,
07:16 then, little by little, step by step,
07:19 to enter his thinking system.
07:23 - Yes, the goal is to find the flaw of a personality.
07:26 - That's it, the flaw, that's it.
07:27 Exactly, exactly.
07:29 And besides, I think of Girnoff, Sergei.
07:32 - Sergei Girnoff.
07:33 - It's the same thing, it's the same way of acting in front of a person.
07:40 A person has treated ...
07:41 - He is a Russian spy who was trained by the KGB
07:44 and who, for a few years, is in France
07:46 and we see a lot on television.
07:48 - Yes, yes, exactly.
07:49 Who was a political refugee, in this party.
07:53 - So, François Varou, also in your book,
07:55 you explain the difficulties that a agent can encounter
07:59 in recruiting a source.
08:02 So you, personally, how do you do it?
08:05 - Well, first of all, what I learned in training,
08:08 we do what we call, first of all, the first thing,
08:11 it's the environment of the person.
08:13 Without talking to him first, what is the environment?
08:17 The first thing is, the person must be in the structure
08:24 where he works, where we will get the information.
08:30 It must be in the structure that the government asked us to penetrate.
08:37 We must introduce it.
08:39 And when we have penetrated, we will have the means,
08:43 thanks to this person we will recruit,
08:45 to steal, in any case, the information we are asked to acquire.
08:50 So, once the person has been targeted by the agent,
08:57 well, it's about doing, first of all, the environment.
09:01 Without any other ... not more than that.
09:04 The environment is how ...
09:07 It's silly what I'm going to say, but how does she use the means
09:11 to go to the structure where she works?
09:14 The train, the car, etc.
09:16 Does she walk a lot to go there, for example?
09:19 Does she use means of work during her trip?
09:24 If she takes the train, does she work with a computer?
09:28 Does she take, at noon, does she have lunch,
09:31 does she have lunch with the young people, or with the dignitaries,
09:34 in the places where she works?
09:37 - We must know all her life.
09:39 - Yes, yes. Does she go out with a person, a woman or a man, etc.
09:43 All these things, you see.
09:45 How does she dress?
09:47 - You explained that the central, the DGSE, the intelligence services,
09:51 have a lot of staff in the big hotels,
09:54 especially housewives,
09:56 who are likely to go steal in the rooms,
10:00 especially of the CEOs, of the CEOs of foreign countries.
10:04 - These people are called "honorable correspondents".
10:08 - Yes.
10:09 - First of all, they have been ...
10:12 How to say ...
10:14 Intervened by agents, by people from the DGSE,
10:18 and they are asked, you for example,
10:20 would you like to be put in touch with a trading officer?
10:25 He will tell you what to do.
10:27 So you say yes or no, and you will say,
10:29 but what is it to be in a relationship?
10:31 Well, for example, if you have an apartment,
10:33 would you lend it to receive someone?
10:37 And this someone, it can be a future agent.
10:40 But we haven't told him yet.
10:42 But you, you are the intermediary.
10:44 These are the people you were talking about earlier.
10:46 - Okay, yeah.
10:47 - The housewife, the same.
10:48 It can be a person who will go to the trash.
10:52 The director or the technician or the engineer
10:57 who works on a sensitive subject.
10:59 You see, that's it.
11:01 This person will facilitate the work of the agent.
11:05 But it's the same in all services.
11:07 - You were talking to us earlier about theater, schizophrenia.
11:11 So it led you to marry many false identities.
11:16 During your career, you called it a legend.
11:19 What are the mistakes to avoid to build a credible legend?
11:24 - First of all, building a credible legend,
11:27 it means finding a false birthplace, a false identity.
11:32 A false date of birth.
11:35 It's that simple.
11:36 Where it gets more complicated,
11:38 it's finding a false credit card.
11:41 So if you're lucky, and it was my case,
11:44 to have a relationship that works in a bank,
11:48 the most fateful moment, the most subtle,
11:51 is when you ask this person,
11:53 "Do you want to give me a false credit card?"
11:56 That's serious for this person.
11:58 Because if she gets caught, it's right away the door of the bank.
12:04 Well, this person is called a "honorable correspondent".
12:07 Thanks to her, I got a credit card.
12:10 - But the hierarchy of these people within the bank,
12:15 they can't be notified by the state services,
12:18 that we need a card, "Deliver us a card."
12:20 - Not at all.
12:21 It's the "honorable correspondent" who makes the barrier,
12:24 so that it doesn't leak.
12:26 But he is not totally aware, the "honorable correspondent",
12:29 that I received, thanks to him, a false card.
12:33 It's a real identity card, but it's a real credit card.
12:38 But the money that the processing office uses to pay its sources,
12:48 well, it's money, it's a cash that has been fed by the DGSE, of course.
12:54 - So, all along your career, you were looking for information.
13:00 It was the subject of your work,
13:03 and you make the distinction between information and information, precisely.
13:07 So, what is the difference?
13:09 How does information become information,
13:13 and the information that is likely to lead to a decision?
13:17 - Information can be found everywhere, in the newspapers, for example,
13:21 or on the board of...
13:25 the boards that we find in the stations, for example.
13:28 We will get informed to know what time the train leaves.
13:30 Well, it's no more, no less.
13:32 Information...
13:33 - Information...
13:34 - So, sorry, the information
13:36 can be drawn from information.
13:39 That means that information and the ability to...
13:44 How would I say it?
13:47 I'm looking for the words because it's quite subtle.
13:50 Information is a sum of information that has been sorted,
13:56 that has been elaborated, that has been synthesized by specialists.
14:01 - And cut out.
14:02 - That's it, cut out, above all.
14:05 No other information.
14:07 And that becomes subtle information,
14:11 when all this has been done.
14:12 - To make it reliable.
14:13 - Very reliable.
14:14 And that's where it becomes information.
14:16 And when a chief has to make a decision,
14:18 we're not going to give him information.
14:20 "My general, I received this information."
14:23 He's going to laugh and say,
14:24 "Your information, you can put it where I think."
14:27 Information must allow the chief,
14:30 whatever he is, civil or military,
14:32 - To go to the end of the line.
14:34 - It allows him to decide,
14:35 to make a decision for a specific action.
14:38 That's the difference.
14:40 It's clear, you see, information, information.
14:42 - So you've been in different positions.
14:45 This is particularly the case of Ethiopia between '83 and '86.
14:49 - Here's Pakistan.
14:51 - So that's a pretty hostile field.
14:53 - Especially Pakistan, yes.
14:56 - You were afraid, already in Ethiopia,
14:59 you were afraid for your life.
15:00 - Yes, yes.
15:01 - How do your services, how does your hierarchy decide
15:05 to send one of these officers in a hostile field?
15:08 How do you assess the situation?
15:11 - I can't answer you, I don't know, curiously.
15:13 But if I had ideas for these countries,
15:16 it was the result of studies done by specialists,
15:21 especially psychiatrists, for example,
15:23 who give advice all the time.
15:26 - Who serve you.
15:28 - And we don't know, in general.
15:30 Besides, before joining the GSE, the Central,
15:33 for six months I was subject, without knowing it,
15:37 to very certain checks.
15:40 In any case, we went to look for my family,
15:42 my parents, my grandparents,
15:44 maybe my great-grandparents,
15:46 did I not have contact with the potential enemy one day?
15:51 It was my friend Sergei Zhirnov, for example.
15:54 We became friends, of course.
15:56 But at the time, it was really,
15:58 if I had any contact with someone,
16:01 with a communist, for example,
16:05 we couldn't go back, because there were problems.
16:09 - So, it never happened to you during your career,
16:12 but what happens to a traitor officer
16:15 who is interpelled abroad
16:18 and who is sent back to his country?
16:21 - I hope he can be sent back to his country at this time.
16:25 He leaves the Central, he is obliged.
16:27 - Ah yes, he is sent back.
16:28 - So there is no public service status.
16:31 - If he is a former soldier, he returns to the regiment.
16:34 - In the army, no problem.
16:36 If he is a civilian, I don't really know what to tell you.
16:39 There must certainly be cases of conscience, I don't know.
16:46 - So you also went to Pakistan,
16:48 that was in the early 90s,
16:50 and you collaborated with the intelligence services of the country.
16:54 - The ISI.
16:56 - Exactly, to monitor Afghanistan,
16:59 with the entourage of Commander Massoud.
17:03 - No, no, no, it was disjointed.
17:05 It had nothing to do with it.
17:07 - So how did your relations with Pakistani intelligence happen?
17:12 - Very difficult.
17:13 My relations with the ISI,
17:16 the ISI,
17:18 were normally done in a very protocol way.
17:24 I received documents in French.
17:28 I wonder if I translated them, I don't remember.
17:30 - Yes, so you explain in your book that you translated them,
17:33 that it took you hours,
17:34 and that one day they told you "No, we don't need your translator".
17:37 - I was disappointed, as you can't imagine,
17:40 because it made me waste a lot of time.
17:42 - And then it was up to you to go, to make appointments.
17:44 It was not them who called you for your...
17:46 - No, no, it was me who made appointments,
17:48 usually every 15 days.
17:49 But it was very protocol.
17:51 And then we always talked about the rain, the good weather.
17:53 So he was providing me with some information on paper.
17:58 I didn't translate it, I sent it directly to the ISI.
18:02 That's all.
18:03 But it was boat information,
18:05 I mean, there was nothing...
18:07 So the downside is that you can't do both,
18:10 and have relations with the special services
18:13 who were watching me,
18:15 in my work,
18:17 and then make classical information as a treating officer.
18:21 You see what I mean?
18:23 Because I was supposed to manipulate
18:25 Pakistani people in Pakistan.
18:28 Both works were incompatible.
18:31 Is that clear?
18:33 - Yes, of course.
18:34 - It's not normal, it's not normal.
18:36 - You are looking for information all your life,
18:39 but you are armed.
18:41 In any case, in Ethiopia or Pakistan,
18:44 you have a gun on you all the time.
18:46 - Not in Ethiopia, in Pakistan, yes.
18:49 Because it was more dangerous for my life,
18:52 and for my children's life, of course.
18:54 - You also mention this entourage of Commander Massoud,
18:58 since in Pakistan you had to watch Afghanistan.
19:02 How did it go when you met the men of Massoud?
19:07 Massoud who was killed in the early 2000s,
19:10 before the attacks in September.
19:12 - I didn't say who I was,
19:14 they were unconscious sources,
19:16 that is to say that we were talking about things and others,
19:19 and in the conversation, without knowing,
19:22 they didn't feel like they were actually informing me.
19:26 They were giving me, I want to use the word,
19:28 information that I turned into information,
19:32 because after I elaborated all that.
19:35 Well, that's how it happened.
19:37 But I met people of Massoud,
19:41 very few, however,
19:43 because they themselves were monitored,
19:45 me too, so you had to be very, very careful.
19:48 - So, it's quite well known,
19:50 we see that in the movies,
19:52 and you also talk about it in your book,
19:54 the competition between French intelligence services.
19:57 They have changed a lot, by the way,
20:00 the name, there was the DST, the DGSE,
20:03 I stayed there,
20:04 after that I think the DST turned into DCRI,
20:07 - DGSI, that's it.
20:09 - DGSI, well, there have been many changes.
20:11 Is the competition between the internal and external services
20:14 already leading to disasters, to tragedies?
20:17 - Not to my knowledge, no, not to my knowledge.
20:19 When a mission started abroad for us,
20:23 and it was moving because the protagonists
20:27 were put in France,
20:30 well, the case was delivered,
20:33 with all the data we had,
20:35 to the DST, at the time, to the DST.
20:37 Now it's the DGSI that takes care of that.
20:40 And the DST also had,
20:43 the relations of the DST were those
20:47 that were made with the prefectures and the sub-prefectures.
20:51 Same for the DGSI.
20:53 So the DGSI has nothing to do with the prefectures and sub-prefectures.
20:57 To such an extent that often I was asked,
20:59 when I was in France,
21:01 to my friends, some of them, who knew what I was doing,
21:04 well, who knew where I was more precisely,
21:07 they asked me, "What do you think of such a minister
21:10 or such a president of the Republic?"
21:12 I knew nothing about it. I was like them, or like you.
21:15 I didn't do any information on the French.
21:18 To such an extent that often, once,
21:21 an ambassador asked me to watch a Frenchman.
21:27 I was very, very embarrassed, very embarrassed.
21:30 Besides, I say it in my book,
21:32 in the book made by Christine O'Kraine,
21:37 it is not the role of the DGSE to do traffic with the French.
21:45 - So we know other foreign intelligence services,
21:51 Israel, Mossad, the United States, the CIA.
21:55 Do we have the means... - The MI6.
21:57 - The British MI6, exactly.
21:59 Do we have the means to make a comparison?
22:02 Are the French well classified?
22:05 Are their agents good agents?
22:07 - So, either we think number, or we think quality.
22:11 So, from a number point of view, obviously,
22:13 we are a small intelligence service.
22:17 If we compare that with the United States or Russia,
22:23 obviously, we don't weigh it.
22:25 But it's David against Colliate too.
22:27 David, he still beat Colliate.
22:30 So, from a quality point of view, we are not bad,
22:32 we are not bad at all.
22:34 That's what we say.
22:36 It's not us who do the analysis, it's the others.
22:39 We are still good, we are still good.
22:41 I was going to say very good, no, let's not be proud.
22:45 No, we are still good, we know how to do it.
22:47 There is no doubt.
22:49 - We can end with this quote,
22:52 in substance, of this former DGSE boss,
22:56 Alexandre de Marange, that you have known already in 1986.
23:00 He told you that the Third World War had already begun.
23:03 - Yes.
23:04 - For many years, and that it didn't look like the classic wars.
23:08 So, what is it?
23:09 - East-West.
23:10 It's the antagonism I was talking about earlier.
23:12 It's the East-West antagonism,
23:14 which has turned into an antagonism,
23:16 North-South.
23:19 - Don't you have the impression that this war in Ukraine,
23:22 it reactivates this East-West antagonism?
23:25 - No, but we don't do this comparison anymore.
23:26 - Between NATO and Russia.
23:27 - Yes, of course, of course.
23:28 But in my opinion, this is not wise.
23:31 The problem is that if this World War,
23:34 as Alexandre de Marange spoke,
23:36 extends to China.
23:38 So, the problem would be the Chinese antagonism,
23:43 when it will go to China,
23:44 and it's Alain Perfil who wrote the book,
23:47 it's what I believe.
23:49 When China will oppose the United States
23:54 in terms of economic war,
23:56 then it will become, it can become a war...
23:59 - A hot war.
24:00 - Very hot.
24:01 And Taiwan, which is currently moving.
24:04 These are clues,
24:06 I find them important.
24:08 We have to be very careful.
24:10 Much more than the clue of North Korea, for example,
24:13 with South Korea.
24:15 North Korea, in my opinion, doesn't make the weight.
24:18 Well, that's what I think.
24:20 - James Bond doesn't exist,
24:22 but as a result of your book,
24:24 François Varoux is back on the official TV Liberté shop.
24:28 Thank you, sir, for coming on TV Liberté.
24:30 - You're welcome.
24:31 (electronic music)
24:34 (chimes)