2025/05/29 by Deborah Bauer · 2 voices
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #European history and politics #French Historical and Cultural Studies #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/16161262.2025.2512301
openalex publication_date 2025/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
France’s defeat in the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War catalyzed the transformation of its intelligence services from temporary wartime or diplomatic operations into permanent state institutions. As intelligence operated with more permanence, groups in the military, police, and foreign affairs ministries focused on military and foreign policy activities of France’s neighbors. Before long, the military’s intelligence services increasingly dominated the practice, thanks to moves towards professionalism and connecting intelligence with national defense. This process accelerated following the April 1886 passage of a law targeting spies, which marked France’s first civilian penalization of peacetime espionage at home. The law laid the groundwork for the military’s intelligence services to expand beyond the original foreign intelligence-gathering mission to focus on domestic threats. Driven by fear, xenophobia, and national insecurity, this shift reinforced a surveillance regime that conflated national defense with identifying and eliminating foreigners and others deemed apart from the nation, considered potential spies.