BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 15. Azerbaijan is at the center of the attention of Western media, with its decisive steps following the victory in the Karabakh war, Trend reports.
The pages of the French press are flooded with the political crisis in the Elysee Palace, the dilemmas, the vulnerable position of the failed Macron government, and Azerbaijan's large-scale security agencies' operations and offensive diplomacy.
Azerbaijan's security services exposed the extensive spy network of French intelligence, which previously has been heavily promoted worldwide. The details of the operation have been partially mentioned in the media. Moreover, the agents of intelligence that France has positioned in reputable international organizations of other countries have found themselves in a predicament, facing the risk of exposure and international scandal.
Martin Ryan, a French spy, detained in Baku
Intelligence Online, a resource close to French state bodies, known for publishing information about the state from behind the closed doors, whose articles are presented on a subscription and paid basis, published an article on the latest events happening between Azerbaijan and France.
Intelligence Online said the following:
The position of DGSE (Directorate-General for External Security) in Baku was eliminated by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan. Diplomatic tensions are rising between Azerbaijan and France. The first blow from the security services came from Baku, expelling two French diplomats from the country between Christmas and New Year. As a matter of fact, Azerbaijan's State Security Service forced the DGSE to shut down.
"- Can I speak to the secretary?" A male voice at the switchboard of the French Embassy in Baku hesitated, and after consulting with a colleague, replied, "He doesn't work here anymore." The same question about another secretary, who was two ranks lower, led to a similar answer.
On Dec. 26, the diplomatic office suddenly found its ranks dwindling. As President Ilham Aliyev was in Moscow that day to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) meeting, French Ambassador to Baku Anne Boillon was summoned to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. She was informed that the two diplomats had been designated "persona non grata" and given 48 hours to leave the country.
According to Intelligence Online, the two "secretaries" of the French Embassy were employees of DGSE who were under diplomatic cover. The head of the intelligence service was a Russian-speaking communication officer.
The shutting down of the DGSE in Azerbaijan - to which France reacted quickly and in turn expelled two "diplomats" from the Azerbaijani Embassy in Paris - was a new setback.
That followed the arrest of four members of the Directorate of Technology and Innovation (DTI, formerly DT) in West Africa's Burkina Faso in early December, which led to the "destruction" of the intelligence system outside the country, as reported by Jeune Afrique (news agency).
Return
The State Security Service told media close to the government that the two men belonged to a regional spy network aimed at destabilizing the situation in Azerbaijan. Baku has also criticized France for supporting Yerevan in a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Karabakh in 2020.
The fiasco with DGSE have deeply irritated the French government. They attribute it to what happened after a series of coups d'état in the Sahel countries (biogeographic region in Africa) that undermined France's position as a factor that precipitated Emmanuel Macron's decision to dismiss diplomat Bernard Emie as head of intelligence. Prefect Nicolas Lerner, who was previously director of the DGSI (Directorate General of Internal Security), was appointed to take his place in the Council of Ministers and later took office.