Damien Van Puyvelde - The DGSE: A Concise History of France's Foreign Intelligence Service

The DGSE by by Leiden University associate professor Damien Van Puyvelde is the first history of France's present-day foreign intelligence service to be published in English. Read on for a Q&A with the author to learn more.

What initially sparked your academic interest in the DGSE?

I’m French, and I studied political science at Sciences Po Strasbourg before moving to the UK and the US to specialize in intelligence and security studies. Most of what academics know about intelligence comes from the anglophone world—the US, the UK, and, to a degree, Russia and a handful of others. That always left me (and many others) wondering: Do intelligence agencies elsewhere look and behave the same way? Several years ago, a conversation with a British colleague made me realize I had just the right mix of background and curiosity to bring French intelligence into this wider scholarly debate. France is a major intelligence power, and the DGSE—arguably its flagship agency—was the obvious place to start. My goal is to help anglophone and global readers better understand one of the world’s most influential intelligence services.

Which source materials (classified documents, existing literature, journalistic investigations, open-source media, etc.) were most helpful to you during your research process?

The most useful were the “boring but gold” sources: parliamentary reports and hearings. They contain a surprising amount of contemporary detail if you’re willing to read closely. Beyond that, interview-based books with former officers gave me a sense of the DGSE’s professional culture, while a handful of archival finds added texture. No dramatic “smoking guns” here, but small, revealing details that complicate the narrative: for example, France’s decision not to join the Iraq war. If you want to learn more about this episode, you can move directly to chapter four of the book!

Given your discussion about the misleading nature of the media (such as The Bureau), what do you feel is the most common misconception about the DGSE?

First, full disclosure: I loved The Bureau. Like many viewers, I binged it. While it looks authentic—the logos, the office furniture, the nods to real-world events—the plotlines are well…a bit far-fetched. The show focuses on nonofficial cover officers, who represent a tiny fraction of what the DGSE actually does.

The biggest misconception, then, is that intelligence is all high-risk spy games and adrenaline. In reality, it’s often bureaucratic, methodical, and—depending on your taste—reassuringly or regrettably dull. If a TV show tried to capture the real day-to-day of intelligence, it probably would not last beyond the pilot episode.