Private spy unit kept tabs on French President's foes

By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent

PARIS - The photo shows two gleaming banks of tape-recorders in a windowless room, its walls and ceiling starkly painted, a large, functional table in the centre of a polished, tiled floor.

The picture could have been taken at the old KGB headquarters in Moscow.

Instead, it is of a room in the Elysee Palace, the home of France's President.

It was in this undercover room that, for three years, an illegal espionage unit, operating at the behest of Francois Mitterrand, spied on the head of state's political rivals and personal enemies.

Memories of Mitterrand's long reign, from 1981 to 1995, with its atmosphere of feuds, vituperation and Byzantine dealings, have been triggered by the start of a six-month trial of 12 people charged with running this sleazy operation.

Paris' top court has heard that around 150 citizens were targeted for secret monitoring, which unfolded outside the law and the scrutiny of Parliament and, say the defendants, at Mitterrand's whim.

The list is headed by Le Monde journalist Edwy Plenel, now the daily's editorial director, who incensed Mitterrand by blowing the whistle on the Rainbow Warrior affair in 1985.

Others were a political pamphleteer, Jean-Ederm Hallier, who had been a thorn in Mitterrand's side by threatening to reveal the existence of his illegitimate daughter; the renegade left-wing lawyer Jacques Verges; journalist Georges Marion of the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine; lawyers, businessmen and police informants; and also unexpected figures such as the actress and Chanel model Carole Bouquet and author Paul-Loup Sulitzer.

The undercover unit was "a parallel police force", says the left-of-centre daily Liberation, whose revelations of the scandal in 1993 unleashed the investigation that only now has come to court.

The probe survived attempts by Government figures, left and right, to sabotage it by political threats and denying access to secret documents.

The unit was set up by Mitterrand in 1982 as an anti-terrorist squad, prompted by a bombing outrage in Paris that killed nine people.

But, testosterone-driven, operating outside the law and the scrutiny of Parliament, it rapidly moved outside the arena of national security and into the realm of politics and Mitterrand's personal grudges.

After three years, the unit had become such a cowboy outfit that it was quietly disbanded in 1986.

The dozen in the dock include the head of the former wiretapping cell, Christian Prouteau; his deputy, Paul Barril; Mitterrand's cabinet chief, Gilles Menage; Michel Delebarre, former chief aide to Pierre Mauroy, who was Prime Minister when most of the eavesdropping went on; and Louis Schweitzer - now boss of the car giant Renault - who was aide to Mauroy's successor, Laurent Fabius.

They are accused of breaches of privacy, a charge that carries up to one year in jail and a fine of €45,000 on conviction.

So far, the defendants have pleaded ignorance or argued they had no choice as they were carrying out orders from the President.

"Our unit was diverted for political ends, for dirty police work for manipulation," said Barril.

"The orders came from Mitterrand's office. I always denounced the abuses."

That defence is convenient, given that Mitterrand died in 1996. But buttressing it with documented evidence may be impossible, for Mitterrand, a master of the black political arts, never left his fingerprints on acts of skulduggery.

In August 1982, Mitterrand named Prouteau - then head of an elite gendarmerie unit, the GIGN - to head "a mission of co-ordination, information and action against terrorism".

Prouteau recruited agents from the police and secret services, and organised them into two branches, one of which was an "operational" wing called the Mixed Action Group (GAM), while the other was "co-ordination", a cover term for wiretapping.

Within six months, though, GAM ran into big problems. Swaggering and macho, Barril and his men framed a group of innocent Irishmen in Paris, planting guns, explosives and documents in their apartment in order to have them arrested as suspected members of the IRA.

As the scandal's rumbles became louder, Prouteau dissolved GAM in order to focus on the eavesdropping side, aiming at figures who were personal enemies or a potential political problem for Mitterrand.

Plenel, according to prosecution evidence, was bugged from December 30, 1985 and February 26, 1986.

Menage, Mitterrand's personal secretary, told the court the President was eager to track down Plenel's sources because of his revelations about how French secret agents had carried out the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

Plenel had further incensed Mitterrand with another scoop on an operation in which France had bust a network of KGB spies thanks to an agent that it had in Eastern Europe.

"The President asked me [to spy on Plenel], I spoke to [Defence Minister Charles] Hernu, and they gave me access to the phones, that's all it needed," Prouteau said.

Prouteau had to carry out a small ruse to get the necessary signature from the Prime Minister's office.

Its authorisation was needed in order to get secret service technicians to set up the wiretap and route it to the undercover listening room in the Elysee Palace.

To avoid rousing suspicions, the wiretappers asked to eavesdrop on Plenel's girlfriend, whose name was not well known. They described her, in real life a secretary, as an arms trafficker.

"If I had put M. Plenel's name down, I would never have got the wiretap," said Prouteau.

Menage said he personally handed Mitterrand transcripts of the Plenel tapes.

Mitterrand also allegedly ordered the spies to keep close tabs on Hallier, who was threatening to go public with the story of Mitterrand's secret daughter, Mazarine Pingeot.

It is alleged that on one occasion, the Elysee discovered that Hallier was to appear on a TV chat show, and used its clout to have the programme cancelled.

Hallier, who died in 1997, was "persecuted by the Elysee", says his brother, Laurent Hallier.

"He knew they wanted to harm him."

The tapping scandal had huge repercussions in France. It prompted legal reforms, requiring tougher scrutiny of requests to monitor phones, and ushered in a new generation of Socialist politicians, repelled by Mitterrand's imperial style.

Even so, the shadow of Mitterrand remains a long one, because there are still so many politicians today who owe their rise to his favour.