Honeytrap schemes favored by many intelligence services do not work on French spies because their wives are used to their philandering, according to a new documentary film.
Spooks working for the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) said their Russian foes have learned over the years that it was pointless to try to blackmail them by threatening to expose their extramarital affairs.
“That was because [an agent] generally said: ‘Go ahead, show her, she’ll understand,’ or ‘she already knows about it,'” a DGSE agent identified only as Nicolas explained in the documentary, “The Making of Secret Agents.”
In espionage, honeytrapping refers to a practice in which an agent lures a target into a compromising sexual situation to provide an opportunity for blackmail.
Nicolas, who appeared with his face blurred and his voice altered to protect his identity, went on to discuss what he said defectors from the former Soviet Union had referred to as the “French paradox” in regard to honeytrapping.
“If you surprised a Frenchman with a mistress by telling him, we’ve caught you red-handed with a 22-year-old called Tatyana, work for us or we’ll tell your wife, it didn’t work,” he said.
The makers of the documentary about DGSE, which aired in France Tuesday night, were given unprecedented access to the secretive agency and its officers, one of whom cheekily remarked that save for the “odd vodka martini,” their lifestyles had little in common with James Bond’s globe-trotting escapades.
Bernard Emié, France’s spy chief until December, said that DGSE was staffed by “ordinary people doing extraordinary things using exceptional means.”