Understanding the Difference Between Spying, Influence and Interference: Insights from the DGSI

To have a definition of these practices, nothing better than those given by Nicolas Lerner. Before this same commission, the director general of internal security (DGSI) clearly distinguished each operation. First of all, thespying corresponds to “illegal access to confidential information”. This is what François Fillon refers to when he talks about the wiretapping affair of the American national security agency. I’influence of a State represents the strategies deployed “to try to radiate, influence and convince on the basis of its model and its values”. “Such is the case of France”, indicates the head of the agency responsible for preventing all forms of espionage and foreign interference. However, interference actions are “distinguish from the politics of influence”, as he points out in his introductory remarks.

In the eyes of the DGSI, interference is indeed defined by “a politics of influence” whose particularity is to act in a way “hidden”. “It consists, for a State, in carrying out actions aimed at making the policy of another country structurally favorable to its own, without knowing where the people and organizations to which it has recourse are speaking.” It is this character “clandestine” of the action that makes it really problematic. In the case of influence, a country praises its model and tries to convince that it is the best, which is on the side of diplomacy. On the other hand, we have actors with hidden interests.

To better understand this distinction, we can cite the “Qatar Gate” which splashed the European Parliament last December. Eva Kaili, a Greek MEP, is accused of praising Qatar and its labor law efforts for cash. A practice described by some as “lobbying agressif” which clearly corresponds to interference in the eyes of the DGSI.