In a recent article, Intelligence Online highlights that French intelligence services are making a notable pivot eastward. To better counter emerging threats from Moscow, France is seeking closer collaboration with smaller states in Russia’s periphery, with promising partnerships beginning to take shape. Central Asia, the latest frontier in Russia’s historical sphere of influence, is now at the center of Paris’ strategic outreach.
As with the new partnerships being forged in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus in response to Russia, French security diplomacy has been reaching out to Central Asian countries since the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022. However, these nations, caught as they are between Russia and China, appear to have much less room for manoeuvre when it comes to distancing themselves from their Russian neighbour.
With a strategic partnership on uranium in the background, Kazakhstan remains the most inclined to be seduced. A delegation from France's IHEDN national defence studies institute was most recently in Astana on 4 September to discuss ways of deepening ties in terms of strategic thinking.
Since 2009, when Kazakhstan bought two observation satellites from Airbus Group, there has been cooperation in image intelligence with French services, reinforced by the current high stakes between the two countries (border surveillance, uranium, etc.).
This cooperation has taken on particular significance in recent weeks, since Astana and Moscow became embroiled in a dispute over the highly strategic Baikonur spaceport. Kazakhstan wants to regain partial control, while Russia is threatening to leave the site by 2028 and move to Vostochny, Siberia, taking the hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties that go with it. The base is a cornerstone of Russia's presence in the country. To make up for the potential loss, Astana could welcome new players to the site, whether from New Space in the West or from China.
French military intelligence counting on Mongolia
Neighbouring Mongolia is also being targeted by French spies. Sandwiched between the giants of Russia and China, the country led by President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh allows France to benefit from more detailed intelligence on Russia, and also on China. According to Intelligence Online sources, the then head of France's DRM military intelligence directorate, Jean-François Ferlet managed in 2019 to secure an advantageous partnership with the General Intelligence Agency (GIA), Mongolia's only intelligence service. Several technical intelligence systems were installed in the country for the use of both Paris and Ulaanbaatar.
The GIA is in contact with Russian services, notably FSB domestic intelligence and SVR foreign intelligence, but also communicates with the Ministry of State Security (MSS, or Guoanbu) in Beijing with regard to the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, home to a community of Chinese Mongols (IO, 16/06/11). The service is therefore a key interlocutor for a country such as France, which does not operate in the immediate vicinity of Moscow and Beijing.
Operations in less exposed areas
While taking great care not to upset its two neighbours, Mongolia is increasingly turning to the West. This strategy primarily benefits the US, which has a strategic partnership with Mongolia. During a visit to Ulaanbaatar in the summer of 2024, the then secretary of state, Antony Blinken, referred to Mongolia as a "central partner". France, meanwhile, which has its eye on Mongolia's uranium and rare earth deposits, has also moved closer to the country, as evidenced by the closely spaced visits of French President Emmanuel Macron to Mongolia in May 2023 and Khürelsükh to France in October 2023.
This strategy chosen by French spymasters to try to obtain intelligence via the peripheries of countries such as Russia or China is not in itself a novelty. Given the authoritarian nature of the Russian and Chinese regimes, the risks involved and the large number of local counter-espionage agents, France's DGSE foreign intelligence and the DRM have long favoured operations in less exposed areas, particularly in Africa or in "friendly" countries in Europe or Asia.
