Spy's life no James Bond and cocktails

Pierre Martinet has lifted the lid on the mundane but dangerous activities of the French Secret Service.

It's a life of relentless self-discipline, solitude and bogus identities, where a smoking jacket is shunned in favour of an anorak, where dinner is a hamburger and fries and your biggest enemy is a nosey old lady.

Such is the rather joyless existence for France's secret agents, according to a new book that lifts the veil on the Action Service, the frontline division of the French overseas espionage agency, the DGSE (General Directorate for External Security).

"An agent's life isn't James Bond and cocktails," says soldier-turned-spook Pierre Martinet, who served as an undercover surveillance operative and has written DGSE Service Action: Un Agent Sort de l'Ombre (DGSE Action Service: An Agent Emerges from the Shadows).

The period Martinet wrote about was a difficult phase in France's contemporary history. It marked the transition from the end of the Cold War and the regional Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the emergence of a fanatical form of Islamist militancy, seemingly capable of striking almost anywhere in the world.

To meet that threat, Martinet was sent out as a foot soldier in a shadowy war that was fought in the bazaars of the Middle East and the suburban streets of western Europe.

Martinet spent 15 years in the French paratroop regiment, making 3000 jumps and seeing action in Beirut, where 58 of his comrades were slain in a car bomb. He also carried out missions in Chad, Djibouti and New Caledonia.

He then joined the DGSE, an agency that is responsible for espionage outside the national borders.

The agency still flinches at the mention of its biggest disaster: the 1985 Rainbow Warrior affair. The Action Service bore the brunt of the aftermath. A key unit was closed, there was a flurry of personnel changes and operational methods were overhauled.

"There was a big reassessment after this affair," Martinet told the Herald. "It was a very political issue. There were lots of reshuffles, departures, job reassignments. Even today, the Service still has trouble getting over [the episode]."

Despite the shock, the DGSE remained on the offensive. From the mid-1990s, its agents fanned out to all points to track Islamist terrorists and suspected Balkan war criminals. Many operations ended in failure or uncertainty.

In Geneva, Martinet monitored a former lover and other acquaintances of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. In Stockholm, his target was a suspected Islamist radical, Daham Nabil. But most of his missions were in London, which was emerging as a haven for violent Muslim extremists.

In French eyes, the British security service in the 1990s was like a general fighting the past war. Fixated by the IRA, MI5 was negligent about watching the mosques where rabble-rousing imams coached alienated Muslims to join the jihad.

France, though, had become sensitised to the Islamist threat as early as 1994. Its support for Algeria's military rulers in their crackdown against the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) brought reprisals in the form of an Air France plane hijacking and, in 1995, three bombs in Paris.

As France prepared to stage the 1998 World Cup, the domestic security service, the DST, stepped up surveillance of Islamist networks at home and the DGSE followed suit abroad, focusing in particular on "Londonistan", as the agency dubbed the British capital.

Disguised in a worn cap and sideboards and a goatee beard, Martinet was part of a team sent to monitor two men. One was Abu Walid, a Saudi who was a member of Algeria's Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and went on to fight in Chechnya, where he was killed last month.

The other was Abu Hamza, who fought with the Mujahedeen in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan before marrying a British woman and becoming a firebrand preacher at a mosque in North London.

Among those known to have worshipped at the mosque are alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attacks.

Hamza was charged in Britain last year on 16 counts of incitement to murder and race hatred, and his extradition is sought by the US in connection with the 2000 attack on the US destroyer Cole in Yemen.

Putting British residents under surveillance was an immense risk for France, given the inevitable outcry if the agents were ever caught and unmasked. To blend in, Martinet reveals, the restaurateur of choice was McDonald's, for food that was quick, easy, anonymous.

"Every hour which passed transformed the leather interior of our car into an annex of McDonald's," recalls Martinet of a seemingly endless stakeout of Abu Walid in Wembley. "Wrappings of Filet-O-Fish and Big Macs piled up at my feet."

Martinet had his biggest scare during one such operation. Two policemen pulled up behind their car and asked them what they were doing. "Just eating hamburgers," they replied. "Fine, but tell me why you've been there for two hours?" a bobby asked.

Martinet concluded he had been rumbled by an inquisitive resident, in the same way Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur were caught in Auckland after the Greenpeace flagship was sunk by DGSE combat divers.

Fighting to keep at the bay "les rats bleus" - DGSE-speak for panic and paranoia - Martinet and his colleague pretended to be tourists who were looking at the area ahead of a France-England football match.

Martinet was so worried their cover would be blown the operation was scrapped and the team headed back to France. Yet for all the Clouseau-type stories, there is a darker side to Martinet's memoirs. His section of the service would send abroad small teams of several spies to monitor a suspect, to provide a picture of the target's life, including daily routines, correspondents, phone conversations, lovers, work and finances.

After that, says Martinet, his DGSE bosses would decide what to do with such information. If the data were useful, it would be handed to or traded with a foreign intelligence service or police force to have the suspect tried, extradited or taken out of the picture by non-violent means.

But if the suspect was considered an imminent or intractable threat, he could be "neutralised" - on paramount political orders - by an elite DGSE team codenamed Draco, a tight-lipped unit of six highly trained soldiers, says Martinet.

"The operational mode varied according to the target," writes Martinet. "But a bomb under the car remained a good method as it had the advantage of leaving a 'decipherable' signature to the target's friends.

"A bullet in the head or a razor across the carotid artery could be interpreted as the act of a common criminal, but not a car which blows up. The survivors understood and changed profession if they wanted to see their children grow up."

Martinet insists that during his years with the DGSE, he did not know what his bosses did with the information his team garnered - "it is a completely compartmentalised business" - but does not believe an assassination order was given for any of the people he followed.

One of the biggest strains in the profession is that of multiple identity and secrecy. In addition to his name, Martinet had a codename (Florent) for the service and a fake name, Vincent Seyries, for his civilian cover in France, plus operational IDs.

To give substance to the Seyries name, he had a bogus job, and rented an apartment in Paris, to which he had to return regularly to chat with the neighbours. Even though the place was empty, he put on the TV and ran up the electricity bill to make it look as if it was occupied.

In this grey, clandestine existence, the name of Pierre Martinet was taboo. Even though his wife was also a DGSE agent, they could not talk about their work.

After 20 years in the military and DGSE, Martinet joined the TV channel Canal Plus as a security officer, where he recounts he was obliged to place dissident employees under surveillance. That was the last straw; after that he abandoned the secret life forever.

Now, at 41, he has no regrets. "Today, I have my real name, Pierre Martinet, on my letter box and I am no longer startled when I see it."