If the list of defendants in a trial could be compared to a cast, this would be a stellar one: a former head of France's domestic intelligence service, two of his most loyal operational agents, a state prefect, a senior magistrate, a former star detective.... This is a line-up of individuals whose professions are supposed to be in harmony with the French Republic's laws, yet who are now suspected of having violated them. Many are alleged to have done so to help the private interests of a major French multinational, indeed probably the most high-profile company of them all: the luxury goods giant LVMH.
On November 13th a criminal court in Paris began proceedings in the so-called ‘Squarcini affair', named after Bernard Squarcini, the man who led France's domestic intelligence agency the DCRI (now called the DGSI) during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency (2007-2012), before putting his talents to work in the private sector for - among others - billionaire Bernard Arnault, the head of luxury goods group LVMH.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
In his heyday Bernard Squarcini was known as ‘The Shark’. It is an understatement to say that the trial, due to run until November 29th, looks set to plunge the trial judges into the murky depths of the tangled web that can exist – beneath the veneer of decorum and public relations - between high society and the lowly world of law enforcement.
The case covers extensive ground. In brief, it revolves primarily around how, during his period in office between 2007 and 2012, Bernard Squarcini allegedly used the resources of the intelligence services he led for the benefit of billionaire Bernard Arnault, and illegally spied on one of his own agents. Then, after 2012, once he had moved to the private sector, the trial will consider how 'The Shark' allegedly continued using his networks within the state to keep surveillance on figures such as future MP François Ruffin (of the radical-left La France Insoumise), a thorn in Arnault’s side.
Bernard Squarcini is charged with eleven offences: breach of confidentiality, abuse of trust, forgery of public records, complicity in violating professional confidentiality and the receipt of the product of any such breaches, compromising classified information, receiving personal data fraudulently, passive influence peddling, embezzlement of public funds, and complicity in the illegal exercise of private investigation.
Like the other nine defendants in the trial, he benefits from a presumption of innocence.
Outside any judicial or administrative framework
The case began with a former domestic intelligence agent, Franck Alioui, whose initial bafflement later turned to anger. The bafflement came at the end of 2008, when Alioui and other colleagues from the DCRI (as it then was) were mobilised for a curious mission in Paris and Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. Their task was to identify a man attempting to blackmail Bernard Arnault over purely personal matters. It was Bernard Squarcini, then head of the DCRI, who ordered this mission after a mere phone call from Pierre Godé, who at the time was LVMH's number two (he has since died).
According to the investigating judges probing the case, this operation had nothing to do with maintaining national security or protecting economic interests, both core duties of the DCRI. Intelligence services were being deployed outside of any judicial or administrative framework and, moreover, there was no trace of this mission within the archives of the DCRI which, for a time, had effectively become a private detective agency in the service of a billionaire.
The anger came when Franck Alioui, the DCRI agent who had raised concerns internally about this mission benefiting LVMH, was placed under surveillance soon after he made those complaints at the end of 2008, in early 2009, and then again in 2011. Officially, the surveillance was due to his supposed excessive closeness to foreign powers, particularly Algeria. However, the judicial investigation considered that these claims were entirely unfounded, and “suspicions” that the agent might be compromised with foreign entities were “completely dismissed” during the probe.
After the change of government in 2012, when socialist president François Hollande came to office, Bernard Squarcini, deemed too close to rightwing networks, was removed from the DCRI. He then found a new berth at LVMH, a company which had developed the habit of offering comfortable posts to former magistrates, police officers and ministerial aides.
The move proved highly profitable for ‘The Shark’: during the period under judicial investigation (2013–2016), his private intelligence company Kyrnos - it means ‘Corsica’ in ancient Greek - received 2.2 million euros from LVMH.
According to the charges, Bernard Squarcini is suspected primarily of having sold to LVMH the means to unblock situations within the public sector and to obtain confidential information.
Hermès and Ruffin: a shared struggle
Two episodes in particular highlight these suspicions. The first concerns the economic war between LVMH and its luxury goods rival Hermès. LVMH had been accused of attempting a hidden takeover of Hermès using offshore tax havens, claims which led to a judicial investigation.
The current case file reveals the breadth of Bernard Squarcini's network within the state - a magistrate (Laurent Marcadier), a state prefect (Pierre Lieutaud), a police officer (Christian Flaesch), among others - who provided confidential information about that ongoing investigation into LVMH. When questioned, ‘The Shark’ said he had not made use of the details he got from the flow of information he received. “Yes. I get a call, people tell me things, but I do nothing with it,” he said.
Among Squarcini's trusted sources was the former head of the criminal investigation department at Paris police, Christian Flaesch, a ‘top cop’ with a distinguished career, who was convicted (receiving a 5,000-euro suspended fine) in a related trial for illegally informing Squarcini about the status of the Hermès case.
The other episode illustrating Squarcini’s methods while helping LVMH concerns the surveillance of journalist and future MP François Ruffin and his newspaper Fakir. This took place during the filming and release of the award-winning documentary 'Merci Patron!' about Bernard Arnault. (See below Mediapart's own investigation into aspects of the affair, based on judicially-approved phone-taps of Bernard Squarcini's phone.)
Several state agencies - and sometimes the same officials already used in the Hermès case - were discreetly mobilised by Bernard Squarcini to gather information on Ruffin and Fakir. The affair also involved private agencies, as well as several members of an intelligence cell based at the Élysée. In a summary of their investigation, investigating judges Aude Buresi and Virginie Tilmont condemned Squarcini's “commonplace use of state resources”, for which he was handsomely paid by LVMH.
In both these aspects of the case (Hermès and Ruffin), LVMH managed to avoid being placed under investigation and a trial by negotiating a settlement with the justice system. It involved paying a ten-million-euro fine in exchange for admitting to the alleged actions. This agreement poses a potential problem for Bernard Squarcini’s defence; the current trial will determine if it will weigh heavily against him.
Bernard Arnault unaware of anything
In January 2019 the head of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, was questioned simply as a witness in this investigation, by a commissioner general from the Inspection Générale de la Police Nationale (IGPN), the internal police responsible for probing the Squarcini affair. Yet from his official statement, it would appear that Bernard Arnault was probably the least informed person about some of the most sensitive matters concerning the company he has chaired since 1989.
On the topic of Bernard Squarcini, Arnault had little to say. “I've met him once or twice, but don't work with him,” the LVMH boss stated. He said that Squarcini’s recruitment was handled by LVMH’s former number two, Pierre Godé, who died from cancer in 2018. “Pierre Godé had very broad autonomy; he was vice-president of the group with equivalent powers to mine. He doubtless believed that in the area of security, Mr Squarcini possessed particular expertise. I know no more than that,” said the billionaire.
I know nothing about it. I'm finding out about it.
As for the matters now before the Paris court, Bernard Arnault professed to have known nothing at all. The contractual nature of the relationship with Bernard Squarcini? “I know nothing about it,” he told the senior police office who interviewed him. The use of DCRI resources in 2008 for his benefit? “I wasn’t informed of that. I can’t help you on that.” The Hermès affair? “I know nothing about it. I'm finding out about it.” The various administrative favours obtained by Bernard Squarcini for LVMH or its employees? “I’m not aware of that.” The surveillance on François Ruffin? “I have no information on that subject,” Bernard Arnault said.
Arnault did, however, make a point of informing investigators that at LVMH they paid “close attention" to the issue of “ethics”.
Classified top secret
During the investigation, another episode - unrelated to LVMH - revealed Bernard Squarcini’s methods to the judges. Searches carried out in 2016 at his home and private offices led to the discovery that the former spymaster, in a style reminiscent of Donald Trump in the United States, had kept no fewer than 393 confidential documents marked “classified” or “top secret” which he had taken with him when he left his position as head of the domestic intelligence service in 2012.
These documents, which came from several government departments (the Ministries of the Interior, Defence, and Economy, as well as the Élysée and the prime minister's office), were found variously in a trunk at Squarcini’s home, a safe in his name at the bank BNP and in his offices at LVMH.
In theory these kinds of documents should never be stored in such locations; the risk that they could be revealed to individuals without security clearance explains the charge of “compromising classified information” levelled against Bernard Squarcini.
What did Squarcini possess? They included “top secret” documents on intermediaries Ziad Takieddine and Alexandre Djouhri, as well as the financier Thierry Gaubert - three central figures in the Sarkozy-Gaddafi funding affair (which is set for trial in January 2025).
When questioned by Judges Buresi and Tilmont, the former DCRI chief struggled to explain why he had held on to these classified files. Some related to the Islamist movement in France and Iranian nuclear matters; others involved individuals at the centre of explosive financial and political scandals such as the Karachi, Clearstream and HSBC affairs.
Bernard Squarcini claimed that after his abrupt and forced departure from the intelligence services due to the change in government he had had no time to return these files to the appropriate state authorities. And that, absorbed by his new private sector roles, he had forgotten about them. He insisted he had not used the documents and intended to destroy them.
The investigating judges, however, suspected otherwise: and wondered if Squarcini had retained these documents deliberately, to make use of them in his new private intelligence ventures. “Not at all, they were out-of-date,” responded Squarcini, though he was contradicted on this by the legal department at France's Ministry of Defence. According to the ministry, the documents “still retain real sensitivity today, which would prevent their declassification”.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter