The weekly “L’Express” reveals that it was run by a KGB agent

“His intimate entourage confirmed this occult relationship to L’Express,” says company editor-in-chief Etienne Girard.

“A brilliant journalist. But also a traitor to France who, for thirty-five years, worked for the KGB.” The magazine The Express reveals, in its edition published Thursday February 15, that its director in the 1970s, Philippe Grumbach, was a spy for the secret services of the USSR.

“His intimate entourage confirmed this occult relationship to The Express. Close to Mitterrand and Giscard, he was, unbeknownst to everyone, one of the greatest Soviet spies of the Fifth Republic. affirms the editor-in-chief of the society department, Etienne Girard, who, with Anne Marion, signed a long-term investigation, carried out in the KGB archives. Philippe Grumbach, who hid behind the alias “Brok”, died in 2003, at the age of 79.

A “gray zone” revealed

“It was impossible not to reveal this gray area within a newspaper which, from Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber to Jean-François Revel, from François Mauriac to Raymond Aron, has always strived to combat utopias totalitarianism and the ravages of communism”, write Etienne Girard and Eric Chol, editorial director, in the magazine’s editorial.

Philippe Grumbach served as editor-in-chief from 1956 to 1960, before becoming editorial director in 1974. He was also editorial secretary at the French Press Agency (the former AFP) from 1946 to 1948. After a detour to Release Then Paris-Presse-l’Intransigeanthe had entered the Express in 1954 as editor. He founded Pariscope in 1965, then directed the Crapouillot. He then returns to The Express where he held, from 1971, the functions of political director, then editor-in-chief, and editorial director.