Nell’ultimo numero di International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vi segnalo un articolo di Philippe Hayez: “‘Renseignement’: The New French Intelligence Policy“.
L’articolo è a pagamento ma ne esiste online una versione gratuita. Si tratta dell’intervento che Hayez ha tenuto al prestigioso Oxford Intelligence Group nel maggio dello scorso anno.
L’autore è un ex dirigente dei Servizi francesi e tra il 2003 ed il 2006 è stato vicedirettore della DGSE, l’Agenzia di Intelligence estera (a proposito, avete visto il nuovo logo?).
La parte che ho trovato più interessante, soprattutto per eventuali spunti di riflessione riguardanti il nostro Paese, è quella in cui l’autore parla del processo di costituzione della comunità d’intelligence francese.
Scrive Hayez a proposito della riforma del 2008:

This reform sounds almost like a ‘coming-out’ for the Frence services, yet it doesn’t formally recognize the existence of a French Intelligence Community. While it provides a sound basis for an intelligence policy, it still falls short of plainly admitting the IC’s existence. Thus, the French intelligence tribes have n undoubtedly received their marching orders but are still waiting for their flag.Policy studies have witnessed e revival of the notion of ‘community’ (…) but the notion of national ICs has still been seldom, or certainly insuffiently, analyzed and discussed among intelligence experts and political scientists (..).In France, an officially sanctioned notion of an Intelligence Community cannot be found. In the field of security policy, the only recognized community is the military (…) and while the White Paper of 2008 adds,cursorly but for the first time, the notion of a Defense Community, it still makes no mention of any intelligence or security community.

Come mai, si chiede Hayez, in Francia ancora non è stata sancita formalmente l’esistenza di una comunità di intelligence, a differenza di quanto avvenuto in altri Paesi come gli Stati Uniti (dove il concetto di Intelligence Community è nato), la Gran Bretagna o l’Italia (sì, Hayez cita en passant proprio il nostro Sistema di Informazione)?

What explanation can be given for this lack of recognition, in stark contrast with the experience of most Western democracies? (…) A few factors might explain the absence of the intelligence community concept in contemporary France.Size doesn’t matter. In many European countries where an official community is already recognized (Italy and Spain, for instance), intelligence professionals are fewer in number than the 12.000 to 15.000 people so accounted for in France now.But the lack of a unified professional practice among contemporary ‘intelligencers’ may help provide an explanation. When looking into the nature of intelligence practices, a major consideration must be that few of them are shared by all the services. Analysis, for example, was not, until recently, recognized as a discipline; secret collection through human sources and often SIGINT are often viewed as the privileges of a single service; and, most of all, the distinctive law enforcement capacity of the French security services makes it different from other services. Therefore (…) ‘cats’ and ‘dogs’ do not naturally view themselves as part of a single epistemic family.”Hayez evidenzia quindi le differenze storiche e sociologiche tra le diverse anime dell’intelligence:”In most democracies, the intelligence profession is resting on at least three types of dedicated bureaucracies: (1) foreign intelligence, wich appeared after the Vienna Congress of 1815, grew with the Colonial Empires, and became after 1945 what Sherman Kent called ‘strategic intelligence’; (2) military intelligence, born in the reorganized military staff of the second half of the 19^th century; and (3) its cousin, security intelligence, progressively separated from police organizations since the beginning of the 20^th century. The modern services have often kept distinct (…) mindset and habitus from the diplomats, military officers, and policemen who have been giving them their present shape. In the French Civil Service system (…) recruitments and careers in intelligence are kept separate. A military intelligence professional is still first and foremost a military officer recruited through a military school; a member of a security agency, a police officer. Only the [DGSE] has set up, since the 1990s, a specific formal recruitment for its civilian component and can offer a true career for its civilian and military members. Therefore, exchanges of personnel are few, and no consolidated employment perspective in intelligence exists for most of its members.The strong ministerial tradition in governmental practice also has an impact. Until very recently, ministerial responsibility played an important role in the French political system. In the operations of the intelligence and security agencies, the security services were left under the close scrutiny of the Minister of Interior; the military services and, since 1966, the DGSE have been receiving their budget and orders from, and more or less reporting to, the Minister of Defense.The absence of the legislature in this landscape provides a final explanation for the lack of a consolidated intelligence community (…).This combination of internal and external factors therefore explains the rather low level of structuring of the French Intelligence Community”

In sintesi, Hayez individua le cause alla base del “basso livello di strutturazione” della comunità d’intelligence del suo Paese nella dipendenza dei Servizi da ministeri differenti, nell’esistenza di differenti ed autonomi bacini di reclutamento, in percorsi di carriera separati, nella mancanza di una (riconosciuta) comune professionalità tra gli appartenenti ai Servizi, nell’assenza di una specifica legge quadro contenente una definizione giuridica di intelligence community.

Il Libro Bianco della Difesa e della Sicurezza Nazionale del 2008 pur non sancendone formalmente l’esistenza costituisce secondo Hayez un passo in avanti verso la definitiva consolidazione di tale comunità. Ciò attraverso l’istituzione di una scuola unica dei Servizi, un più esteso incorporamento di civili provenienti da università e “grand ecoles”, la creazione del Conseil National du Reseignement all’interno del nuovo Consiglio per la Difesa e la Sicurezza Nazionale, l’istituzione di un Coordinatore dell’Intelligence (“as already exists in London, Berlin and Rome”) come cinghia di trasmissione tra Servizi e Presidente della Repubblica, l’annunciata emanazione di una nuova legge quadro.
L’esperienza francese spinge ad un confronto con il caso italiano ed in particolare, a mio avviso, ad una riflessione sul  ruolo che la legge 124 ha avuto nella creazione o nel consolidamento (a seconda dei punti di vista) della comunità di intelligence del nostro Paese.