Revealed: the explosive phone taps involving France's ex-spy chief Bernard Squarcini

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Mediapart is publishing a series of recordings of police phone taps involving the former head of France's domestic intelligence agency, Bernard Squarcini. These extraordinary tapes, which date from 2013, reveal the de facto existence of a state within a state, where private and public interests became intertwined. The first series of judicially-approved recordings reveal how after leaving his intelligence post Squarcini, nicknamed 'La Squale' ('The Shark'), was asked by the French luxury goods group LVMH to “infiltrate” an independent magazine in order to spy on it. Neither Squarcini nor LVMH wanted to comment on the content of the tapes. Fabrice Arfi and Pascale Pascariello report.

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Mediapart is publishing a series of recordings of police phone taps involving the former head of France's domestic intelligence agency, Bernard Squarcini. Squarcini, nicknamed 'La Squale' or 'The Shark', was head of the agency – then called the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur and now the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure or DGSI - from 2008 to 2012 during the presidency of his close ally Nicolas Sarkozy.

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