It is a “sensitive affair” which began in 1982, the day after the attack in the rue de Rosiers. To thwart new attacks, François Mitterrand announces the creation of an anti-terrorist cell within the Elysee itself. He entrusted its management to Christian Prouteau, then boss of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN). But over the months, the “cell” also seems to devote itself to the protection of the private interests of the president. He fears to see certain secrets divulged: the existence of his daughter Mazarine and his affair with his mother Anne Pingeot, or even the cancer from which he knows he is suffering. By increasing the number of eavesdropping on personalities unrelated to terrorism, Christian Prouteau’s men seem to have freed themselves from legal limits.
The writer and polemicist Jean-Edern Hallier, furious at not having been rewarded for his support for the socialist candidate, threatens to reveal the existence of Mazarine in a pamphlet? The cell will wiretap for several years all the conversations of the author and those of his relatives, and the authorities will do everything to prevent its publication. Journalist Edwy Plenel disturbs with his investigations into the Rainbow Warrior or the “Irish of Vincennes”? It will also be bugged.
Why was the Schmelck report not followed?
Before coming to power, François Mitterrand had nevertheless undertaken to supervise so-called “administrative” wiretapping, as opposed to judicial wiretapping. The law was not yet voted (it will be necessary to wait until 1991), but there was a report which posed safeguards. Written in 1981 by the president of the Court of Cassation at the time, Robert Schmelck, it recommended the ban on listening to lawyers, political figures and journalists … But for Christian Prouteau, this framework does not seem sufficient: “It depends on what the lawyers, journalists, or politicians did, he argues. That would mean that in these professions, there are no people who, at one point, are borderline. Me, I do not know of a profession where, at one point, people are not borderline.”
In the case of Jean-Edern Hallier, for example, the investigation of “Sensitive affairs” tells how its wiretapping could be authorized on the grounds of its notorious “instability”. But the writer did not belong to the protected categories …
Why did you bug a journalist like Edwy Plenel? The former head of the cell’s justification can be summed up in two words: “the Farewell affair”, one of the biggest espionage cases of the Cold War. By uncovering the functioning of a Soviet spy ring, the revelations of a double agent put the KGB in trouble, and possibly even precipitated the fall of the USSR. In 1985, Edwy Plenel wrote an article devoted to this subject. “The President of the Republic calls me, says Christian Prouteau, said to me: ‘How does he know all this?’ “
Edwy Plenel listened to because of the Farewell affair?
According to the explanations of Christian Prouteau, François Mitterrand was then seeking to get closer to Mikhail Gorbachev who had just come to power, and “leaks” on the Farewell affair would have been sources of diplomatic difficulties. “Gorbachev was due to come around October, remembers Christian Prouteau, and in June or July comes the article on the Farewell affair. And the president said to me, ‘You are responsible for my security, it seems to me? (…) We were four to know certain things which are in this paper. I want to know how Mr. Plenel found out about this‘. “The former cell number 1 would have replied:”Mr President, in order for me to know, I must know with whom he is in contact, so that I listen to him.“The president would then have said to him,”and it’s Mitterrand in the text: ‘Do what you have to do’.“
Extract from an interview broadcast on December 13, 2021 after “Listening to the Republic”, an investigation by Emilie Lançon, Jérémy Frey and Jérôme Prouvost, in “Sensitive affairs”, a magazine presented by Fabrice Drouelle and co-produced by France Télévisions, France Inter and INA according to the original broadcast by France Inter.
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