Industrial espionage, drone overflights, sabotage, disinformation campaigns orchestrated from abroad, hybrid threats that blur the border between times of peace and times of war… In the world of intelligence, we do not publish by chance. So when the panorama of 2025 interferences from the DRSD, the report from the Parliamentary Delegation for Intelligence (DPR) and the proceedings of the conference (French intelligence facing global disorder) in December at the National Assembly appear almost simultaneously, you have to know how to read between the lines. And above all, read the lines themselves. What these three texts give us to read is the story of a war without a visible front; led by patient, organized adversaries, who have long understood that the most decisive battles are won far from the battlefield.
The formula that circulates in specialized circles sums up the period well: “ economic war in war economy ». Two « world without compass » described by Amin Maalouf at « panic of the world » diagnosed by Thomas Gomart, director of Ifri, all the analyzes converge, as the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet recalled when opening the December conference: the world order of 1945 has become the world disorder of 2025. And in this disorder, threats no longer follow one another. They add up.
The defense industry under siege
The first lesson from the DRSD panorama is the stabilization of attacks on the French industrial and technological defense base (BITD) at a level that the service itself describes as ” Function HAS”. We are no longer talking about a parenthesis linked to the war in Ukraine, but of a structural phenomenon. The DPR report also documents the trend: a thousand alerts of economic interference in 2023 in France, compared to a third less than three years earlier. Alert processing by the Strategic Information and Economic Security Service (SISSSE) has increased by around 40%.
The consequences for BITD companies and research laboratories are manifested on three fronts. Firstly, on the capital aspect: foreign powers are seeking to take stakes in French companies (15% of attacks observed in 2024). Then on the legal ground, with what specialists call the “ lawfare “, or the instrumentalization of law for the purposes of destabilization. The DRSD notes that this threat of extraterritoriality of law will increase by 2030-2035. Finally, on supplies, through tensions on raw materials and export restrictions on sensitive components.
This triptych clearly illustrates the nature of the economic war that is being played out; a war where we don’t necessarily need to hack a network to weaken a competitor. Sometimes all it takes is a discreet takeover, a well-targeted legal procedure or an embargo on a critical component.
For Pascal Mailhos, national coordinator of intelligence and the fight against terrorism (CNRLT), who spoke at the conference, the break dates from around 2022: “ We have entered the age of polycrises. Threats have become multifaceted and interconnected. From terrorism to organized crime, including foreign interference, they are hybridizing. Their effects are multiplied by the uninhibited use that our adversaries make of new technologies. »
They have your CV. Soon they will have your secrets.
If the cyber threat often focuses media attention, the Directorate of Defense Intelligence and Security (DRSD) points out a less spectacular but equally worrying reality: the human threat remains, in volume, the most important. It represented 45% of the attacks recorded in 2023 and will decline to 36% in 2024. This relative decline does not mean a lull: other forms of attacks have simply increased, rebalancing a picture which is not improving.
How does this human threat materialize in concrete terms? By targeting experts during their business trips, in France and abroad. Through poaching strategies for engineers and researchers, often backed by official talent attraction programs. And above all through the increasingly frequent use of specialized recruitment firms mandated by foreign entities to identify – or even directly recruit – current or former employees of BITD companies. A discreet method, difficult to detect, and extremely effective.
The most exposed sectors? Aeronautics, space, quantum and artificial intelligence (AI); where France has a real technological advance.
During this time, physical attacks have increased, going from 18% of incidents in 2023 to 24% in 2024. Industrial premises and laboratories have been targeted by intrusion attempts, theft of computer equipment or machine tools. The DRSD emphasizes that the theft of professional digital equipment remains one of the simplest ways to capture sensitive information.
But it is perhaps the question of drones which best illustrates this evolution. At the end of 2024, reports around defense-related rights-of-way have seen a very clear increase. The DRSD documents cases of systematic shooting of sensitive installations; for tracking purposes, at a minimum. A French defense company was the subject of four Molotov cocktail throwings, followed by repeated drone overflights. This level of coordination owes nothing to chance.
We no longer destroy a reputation with bombs. We do it with algorithms.
Among the most notable developments in the 2025 panorama, the rise in power of “ reputational maneuvers » deserves special attention. They now represent 11% of the attacks recorded against the BITD. Strategies to discredit French material, exploitation of information leaks, online campaigns orchestrated by protest movements: the forms are diversifying.
The Rafale affair after Operation Sindoor between India and Pakistan illustrated this trend: actors, including China, sought to exploit the event to weaken the image of the French fighter on export markets. This type of maneuver is part of a broader trend documented by Viginum, the service responsible for vigilance against foreign digital interference: no less than 25 influence operations carried out by foreign actors were detected in 2024. Among them, the Russian mode of operation “ Storm-1516 “, active since the summer of 2023, has targeted Western audiences by broadcasting deepfakes and seeking to discredit the Ukrainian government.
Marc-Antoine Brillant, head of Viginum, said it clearly during the conference: “ Foreign actors are capable of opportunistically seizing any news item, any news, to exploit them and attempt to polarize opinion. » He insisted on a fundamental risk: the gradual replacement of traditional media by an ecosystem centered on influencers and alternative opinion media, which offers these malicious actors fertile ground. Trust, he recalled, is a cardinal value in our democratic systems. And for our adversaries, it’s a target.
The Director General of Internal Security (DGSI), Céline Berthon, did not mince her words on the manipulation of information. : HAS” It is based on the complete negation of morality and truth. The decline in truth is a major challenge for our societies, for our democracy, for our freedoms. Attacks on the truth are as serious as some physical attacks. »
Large groups protect themselves. Their subcontractors, not yet enough.
This is a constant that all reports on the subject confirm: large groups like Dassault Aviation, Naval Group, Thales or Safran generally have solid protection systems. These are their subcontractors; SMEs and ETIs often established in the region, sometimes with a single critical component in their catalog, which constitute the most vulnerable targets. Around 80% of attacks target these second-tier actors.
The DPR report goes in the same direction: attacks on economic security no longer only target large companies, but now largely concern SMEs and mid-sized companies. This reality has concrete implications for the defense industrial organization: it is not enough to secure the client if the value chain remains porous. The example of the CAESAr cannon, of which KNDS France had to duplicate certain production tools as a precaution against sabotage, illustrates how far thinking on industrial resilience can go.
In this context, the DRSD has undertaken in 2024, in liaison with the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA) and the main industrial project managers, targeted support for the most strategic companies, on the aspects of physical protection and cyber security. individualized approach which is starting to bear fruit, but which still remains insufficiently deployed in the fabric of second and third tier subcontractors.
« We know what we have to do »
Beyond the immediate threats against the BITD, the DPR report and the discussions at the conference paint a broader picture of the environment in which the services operate. General Langlade de Montgros, director of military intelligence (DRM), said it during the conference: “ The balance of power governs relations between states and armed groups more today than in the past. There is an uninhibited use of force. The return of nuclear power is now part of a worrying form of normality. Yesterday’s alliances are weakened. »
This new geopolitical situation led to the publication, in the summer of 2025, of a new National Strategic Review (RNS), accompanied by a national intelligence strategy updated in January 2025. The Secretary General of Defense and Security national security (SGDSN), Nicolas Roche, explained what is contained in the famous paragraph 112 of the RNS: “ The hypothesis of participation of the French armies in a major high-intensity war in Europe’s neighborhood and the risk of concomitant destabilizing actions of a hybrid nature for the internal security of France reach an unequaled level since the end of the Cold War. “These words, he said, were chosen carefully: “ We have been instructed to write things as they are, with honesty, frankness and directness. »
Intelligence is no longer just a support tool: it becomes, according to the RNS, “ the condition of decision-making sovereignty » and the first line of defense against hybrid threats. This change in status marks a turning point that Nicolas Roche was keen to highlight: “ We have the means to act. What strikes me about my new role is that we know what we have to do. »
This new cycle is also characterized by profound internal reorganizations in each service: creation of mission centers at the DGSE, 2030 strategic project at the DGSI, reform ” Valmy » at the DNRED, development of prospective capacities and red teaming at the DRSD. The DRM, for its part, has carried out a triple transformation: strategic (switching towards monitoring the war in Ukraine), organizational (bringing together research and analysis), and digital (exploitation of AI and big data). « To imagine today that we could have worked differently is a challenge “I recognized General Langlade of Montgros.
Everywhere, silo logic gives way to transversality. And inter-service cooperation reaches a level that the director of military intelligence does not hesitate to describe as unprecedented: “ The intelligence community has reached a level of trust and cooperation that was unimaginable just a few years ago. I started to evolve in this environment in 2007: at the time, we were far from that. »
AI, quantum, space: the race that France cannot afford to lose
The DPR report and the discussions at the conference sound the alarm on a subject that is still too little debated publicly: the risk of technological decline in French intelligence. Nicolas Lerner, Director General of the DGSE, put it into perspective during the conference: “ It would be irresponsible to consider that an intelligence service could only use French technologies. But we must not give up. Services have a role to play in bringing about the emergence of alternative French or European technologies. » Senator Cédric Perrin, member of the DPR, did not take gloves: « 80% of our digital spending is used to acquire American equipment and software. Our growing dependence on the United States for digital architecture is very worrying. »
AI focuses concerns in the short and medium term. The private sector has an influx of capital out of all proportion to what the public sector can mobilize. The main language models are American, graphics processors (GPUs) are becoming strategic goods subject to embargo, and the capacities for transcription, translation, synthesis and research in massive data – essential to modern intelligence – depend directly on them.
Quantum represents a double-edged threat. On the one hand, it will make it possible to communicate without any interception and to analyze data with unprecedented speed. On the other hand, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could break the cryptographic protections that today secure diplomatic, military or government communications. France chose not to undergo this revolution. Inspired by the British ULTRA program – that of Alan Turing and Enigma, whose declassified archives revealed 50 years later the decisive role in the outcome of the Second World War – the PROQCIMA program, supported by the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the DGA, engages five French startups in a race for the sovereign quantum computer. Objective: to have two prototypes of 128 French-designed logical qubits in 2032, for a maximum investment of 500 million euros over ten years.
The space sector, finally, is transforming at high speed and France has no right to miss this shift. It has real assets: the CSO (Optical Space Component) program, whose military observation satellites constitute the backbone of image-based intelligence, the CERES program (space electromagnetic intelligence capability) for electromagnetic listening, or the future Syracuse 4, which secures force communications. But the miniaturization of satellites, the multiplication of commercial constellations and the emergence of private players like SpaceX are redistributing the cards at a speed that traditional military acquisition cycles are struggling to keep up. In the technological race, we never stop winning. We move forward, or we move back.
Backdoor or not backdoor
Among the most sensitive subjects addressed during this triptych of publications, the question of access to encrypted communications occupies a special place. Between 60% and 80% of communications now pass through end-to-end encrypted messaging. Vincent Mazauric, who chairs the CNCTR and observes the services closely, put the right word on the situation during the conference: “ an unbalanced symmetry HAS”. On the one hand, article 8 ter of the drug trafficking law, which sought to oblige platforms to provide access to data in clear form, was finally deleted. On the other hand, an article 16 bis introduced into a bill on infrastructure resilience sought the exact opposite to prohibit any decryption mechanism. Neither position was ” fully educated », a reconnu Vincent Mazauric, président de la CNCTR.
The Constitutional Council also censored, in the same text, the extension of the algorithmic intelligence technique to URLs, considered as “ données mixtes » likely to reveal the content of private communications. Censorship which directly affects the ability of services to detect threats evolving on the internet.
The Minister of the Interior Laurent Nuñez closed the conference by assuming the government’s position without ambiguity: “ Our adversaries – terrorists or members of organized crime – use these systems. Our fellow citizens would not forgive us for missing the chance to investigate. »And to add, with pragmatism: « What is at stake here is the security of our fellow citizens. We must convince, that is what the President of the Republic asked us. »
The President of the National Assembly, for her part, recalled the legislator’s line of conduct: evaluation, pedagogy, openness. A well-adapted legal framework is firstly ” a well-evaluated cadre HAS”. And to cite the example of the 2015 law on intelligence, which required very detailed work before resulting in a text widely adopted by both chambers.
Alliances yes, dependence no
At the conference, on at least one point, all the department directors agreed: yes to international cooperation, but not at any price. Nicolas Lerner said it without false modesty: with more than 250 bilateral and multilateral partnerships, France is a country whose “ information is sought HAS”. Rare capital. But a capital that is only valuable if we retain the capacity to form our own judgments without waiting for others to do it for us.
The DPR’s visit to Poland and Latvia in November 2025 confirmed this on the ground. Our Polish and Baltic partners said it bluntly to the delegation: France is the only country capable of providing an autonomous analysis of the American ally, “ both in tactical intelligence on the Ukrainian theater and strategic HAS”. A unique position in Europe and a responsibility that obliges.
And this responsibility takes on a new dimension since the publication, on December 5, 2025, of the new American national security strategy; just a few days after the DPR report was submitted. This document marks a clear break with the transatlantic paradigm: Washington affirms that it will no longer systematically intervene in world affairs unless its fundamental interests are directly threatened. During the conference, Cédric Perrin mentioned “ a suspension of intelligence sharing who, even if it is temporary, gives France, the only power with the European Union, a particular responsibility in terms of independent obtaining and sharing of intelligence ».
At the European level, the DPR formulates a clear ambition: not to create a ” European CIA “, a perspective considered unrealistic and unacceptable by almost all member states, but build a common analysis architecture. Muriel Domenach, former French ambassador to NATO, slipped in a phrase from Winston Churchill, diverted for the occasion: “ There’s worse than having multi-coop, it’s not having it. »
Services have never been stronger. Neither is the threat.
One of the main threads of the conference was the conviction, shared by all the speakers, that the 2015 legal framework – with its control system by the CNCTR and the DPR – constitutes not a constraint, but a strength. Céline Berthon (DGSI) said it bluntly: “ The first beneficiaries of this supervision are the intelligence services themselves. This framework makes it possible to assume a real public intelligence policy. “Nicolas Roche added that this balance between operational capabilities and control devices” is not experienced as a constraint by the services but as the condition of their effectiveness ».
Aurélien Rousseau, vice-president of the DPR, put his finger on the fundamental political issue: “ Our model of liberal democracy is being targeted by our adversaries. Our democratic failings are our main vulnerabilities. Our enemies constantly study us to create small fractures, then faults in the nation, the Republic, democracy. »And to conclude that the next challenge of the DPR is to « bring these words into the democratic debate “, to translate into accessible language realities that staff and services know, but that citizens are too often unaware of.
Because this is the paradox of the period: the French intelligence services have never been so well equipped; 5 billion euros planned by the LPM 2024-2030, staff numbers increasing in all services – and yet the threat has never been so protean, so diffuse, so difficult to grasp collectively. The DGSI saw its budget more than double between 2015 and 2024; its staff increased by 34 % The DGSE has increased by more than 25%. These real efforts will not be enough if society as a whole does not understand what it is facing.
Train, protect, cooperate: the triptych that no one can avoid
These elements converge towards the same message: the protection of the BITD and the sovereignty of intelligence can no longer rest on the State alone. They require a change in the posture of the companies themselves, and a collective awareness that the economic war is being played out in each link of an industrial chain that very patient adversaries are in the process of mapping.
This involves strengthening the physical security of industrial sites, particularly for subcontractors. By training employees on the risks of interference; including techniques of social engineering used by recruitment firms mandated by foreign entities. Through countermeasures against disinformation campaigns, which require knowing how to detect hostile narratives before they gain momentum. And through closer cooperation between the State and manufacturers to pool information and coordinate the protection of sensitive sites.
For the intelligence services themselves, the issue is also human. Competition with the private sector to attract and retain rare profiles (AI experts, cryptographers, quantum specialists, data analysts) is today fierce. The DPR recommends establishing an appropriate, fair and competitive compensation system, taking into account the constraints inherent to intelligence professions.
Low intensity is the war of those who know how to wait
What makes the situation described by these three publications particularly difficult to manage is precisely its diffuse and cumulative nature. You don’t declare war on an adversary who discreetly recruits your engineers, finances a disinformation network, takes a minority stake in one of your suppliers and has drones fly over your sites. However, the cumulative effects of these actions may, in the long term, permanently weaken the BITD and with it, France’s capacity to ensure its defense industrial sovereignty and, more broadly, its freedom of strategic decision-making.
Nicolas Roche wanted to conclude his speech at the conference on a deliberately optimistic note, which is worth remembering: “ Anxiety comes not from the detailed understanding we have of the threat, but from the feeling that we do not have the means to act. But we already have the means to act effectively. » This is not mere talk: it is the observation of an intelligence apparatus which has been profoundly reformed, better equipped, better coordinated, and which knows what it has to do.
Knowing is not enough. The real battle is being fought in the workshops of Brittany and Occitanie as much as in the classified servers of the intelligence services. It presupposes an awareness that we have already, for several years, been engaged in a permanent low-intensity conflict in which the most skilful actors have understood that it is better to act before the crisis threshold than to respond afterward. The cards are on the table. The adversaries are identified, the operating methods documented, the vulnerabilities named. HAS” The one who can morally hold out the longest is the winner: the one who is victorious is the one who can, a quarter of an hour longer than the adversary, believe that he is not defeated. » Georges Clemenceau spoke about the Great War. A century has passed. Nothing has changed fundamentally. This quarter of an hour more, in the silent war that is being fought against our strategic interests, no one will come and win it for us.
Photo © AFP
