The con artist and the WWI war chest: How the French secret service wound up in a blackmail scandal

Bernard Bajolet, a French diplomat and former head of the country’s foreign intelligence service DGSE, pictured at the Élysée Palace in Paris on September 1, 2022. © Ludovic Marin, AFP

It has all the elements of the perfect spy novel – a secret war chest, an immoral businessman and daring blackmail attempts. An explosive investigative report on Wednesday blew the lid off of what may be one of the French foreign intelligence service’s best-kept secrets: how it allegedly got swindled by a smooth-talking con artist and sent agents to threaten and extort him.

The details of the extraordinary saga began emerging late Tuesday evening, when news broke that Bernard Bajolet, the former head of the French foreign intelligence agency (DGSE), had been indicted back in October for his complicity in an extortion attempt.