“You have to be calm”: character traits, training… the secret agents at the heart of a new documentary on the DGSE this Tuesday

| April 9, 2024 | News | No Comments

“You have to be calm”: character traits, training… the secret agents at the heart of a new documentary on the DGSE this Tuesday

The documentary broadcast on France 2 gives the floor for the first time to active DGSE agents. EPA – IAN LANGSDON

This Tuesday, April 9, France 2 is broadcasting a unique investigation that takes us behind the scenes of the DGSE. Agents testify anonymously but on camera, and talk about their daily lives. They discuss in particular how they are recruited and what qualities it takes to be a good secret agent.

Blurred, their voices modified by artificial intelligence, no one will ever be able to recognize the agents who testify in the documentary DGSE, the factory of secret agents, broadcast this Tuesday April 9 on France 2. For the first time, the general management of external security opens its Parisian premises to Jean-Christophe Notin and Théo Ivanez.

Interviewed by France Info this Tuesday April 9, Jean-Christophe Notin, co-director of the documentary, discusses personality traits secret agents. Far from the James Bond imagination, the daring daredevil, it seems to be the "calm" which is the primary quality required to be a secret agent.

The character of secret agents

"You have to be very calm, very composed, very focused on reflection because this is very long-term research contrary to what you imagine and you need very, very great humility"< /em>, indicates the director who specifies that you need "to know that you are only a link in the chain&quot ;. And if the "player" also seems to recur regularly in the mouths of the agents who testify, the "mythology" of the secret agent is quickly overtaken by the reality of the profession.

"The important thing is not to be secret, it’is to be banal&quot ;, says one of them in the documentary. "The paradox is that the success of an operation is when it remains completely secret. There is no laurel", recalls the director. Secret agent is also a thankless job, because "intelligence is essentially failure", with for example a 90% failure rate for 10% success in recruiting sources.

Very harsh selection and field training

The director recalls that before the training of the agents, there is a very harsh selection, during which we scrutinize the character of the person, in particular their calmness.

Then, you have to immerse yourself in years of training, particularly in real conditions. Thus, "spinning, retrieving information", represent skills that one learns first, reveals the documentary .

The directors had access to training films, intended for future spies. Thus, we teach them how to retrieve the e-mail address of a stranger in no time, or to transmit a message to a person in the middle of the street, without having to know what to do. contact her directly.

DGSE, the factory of secret agents, broadcast this Tuesday April 9 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2 and available on the Francetv platform. 

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