9. Directorate-General for External Security (Direction Generale De La Securite Exterieure – DGSE)
Country: France
Directorate-General for External Security was founded in 1947, under the name of External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service (Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage – SDECE). It only became known as DGSE in 1982. The agency’s past is filled with scandals and controversial actions, most of them performed by the Action Division, its unit tasked with perfuming covert operations abroad. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace vessel, in New Zealand, which resulted in a death of one of the ship’s crew members, was perhaps the most damaging for the DGSE’s image.
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