what Had been a mole for North Korea in the French Senate? And if so, what was its function? How much damage has been done? The questions accumulate, since it became known that, on the night of Sunday, the interior intelligence service of France, the DGSI, ordered the detention of an officer of the Senate, gaul. The doubts are even greater in terms of such employee, Benoît Quennedey, occupies a position in appearance innocuous: it is the “primary administrator of the department of Architecture, Heritage and Gardens”. You do not have access to sensitive information such as issues of defense. Your friends and family deny emphatically that it is a spy. Even so, behind the image of officer gray hides a character intriguing.
despite the fact that his name keeps a huge resemblance with the one of the american presidents key of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy, the affiliations of Quennedey are rather on the other side of the former iron curtain. The officer is an admirer declared the regime of North Korea, a country that claims to have visited seven times since 2005 and about which he has written several books. Also the chair of the Committee of Friendship Franco-Korean and has publicly defended, even in television studios as Russia Today or France 24, ” the virtues of life and the economy in north korea. “But it is not a bolshevik with a knife between the teeth”, emphasizes Dominique Mazuet, owner of the bookstore in paris Tropiques, which has become the bastion of your defence.
The charges are serious. Quennedey was arrested in the framework of an investigation opened by the prosecutor of Paris in march on “collection and delivery to a foreign power of information capable of harming the fundamental interests of the nation.” Took in the sights of the intelligence services, from a year ago, has pointed out, France 2. The officer is suspicious, according to this chain, have lobbied mps in favor of the north Korean regime and to convey to Pyongyang with information on the Senate.
Some senators consulted by the Public string Senat confirmed that Quennedey wore his passion north korea to the halls of the Luxembourg Bahigo Palace. But what makes that a spy from Pyongyang? “Several administrators of the Senate came to complain about his attitude, he was doing a job of influence among the parliamentarians,” said the senator of The Republic in March André Gattolin. “She talked much of that country (…) But never thought I could be an agent propagandist,” has targeted conservative senator Christophe-André Frassa, vice-president of the study group for the France-North Korea.
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After his arrest, both his office as his apartment in Paris and the one of their parents, in Dijon, were recorded. The president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, has revealed this Tuesday that it has ordered a review of “the activities and faults that might have been committed in connection with his duties” and that has “non-provisionally the exercise of their functions”. In addition, he warned that, in case of confirmation of the allegations, its “extreme gravity” would lead the institution to consider to become a civil party of an eventual judgment.
A situation that has “deluded” to the family and friends of Quennedey, educated in the same National School of Administration (ENA) where they prepare the elites of the French State, and where you also have past political figures like the president and Emmanuel Macron. His mother, Brigitte Quennedey, has accused the authorities of wanting to make his son a “scapegoat”.
The library Tropiques is on a war footing. It is moving fast and “make noise”, explains Mazuet, not to declare a secret summary and Quennedey end up “rotting” in pretrial detention on a charge, he insists, “ridiculous” and that “there is more than air.” In a meeting Monday at the library, Aymeric Monville, director of the publishing house of Quennedey, and Large, rejected the accusations against a “very good fellow,” and accusing the authorities of “blackmail with the patriotism.” “Benoît is someone that you can make many criticisms, but certainly not of betraying his country by delivering information to a foreign power,” agreed Patrick Kuentzmann, secretary-general of the Committee of Friendship that presides over Quennedey. This Wednesday it has constituted the “committee Quennedey” to support him against charges “far-fetched and fanciful”, but that could purge up to 30 years in prison.
