Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05PARIS1569
2005-03-09 16:53:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Paris
Cable title:  

TERRORISM INVESTIGATING JUDGE COMMENTS ON CORSICAN

Tags:  PGOV PREL PTER FR 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 001569 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER FR
SUBJECT: TERRORISM INVESTIGATING JUDGE COMMENTS ON CORSICAN
SEPARATISTS, SEES INCREASE IN "REVOLUTIONARY,"
ANTI-CAPITALIST SYMPATHIES

Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER-COUNSELOR JOSIAH ROSENBLATT, FOR REAS
ONS 1.4 B/D

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 001569

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER FR
SUBJECT: TERRORISM INVESTIGATING JUDGE COMMENTS ON CORSICAN
SEPARATISTS, SEES INCREASE IN "REVOLUTIONARY,"
ANTI-CAPITALIST SYMPATHIES

Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER-COUNSELOR JOSIAH ROSENBLATT, FOR REAS
ONS 1.4 B/D


1. (C) Summary: The French government has the upper hand in
its decades-long battle against Corsican separatists, said
terrorism investigating judge Gilbert Thiel, but it is still
too early to speak of an end to separatist-linked violence.
Regarding the other facets of his portfolio, Breton
separatists and "revolutionary" terrorist groups, Thiel said
he was noticing a resurgence in anti-capitalist,
anti-establishment slogans last heard in the 1970s, during
the days of Action Directe and the Red Brigades, a rise he
considered troubling. End summary.

THE "GALERIE SANTI-ELOI"


2. (C) On March 7, poloff met with Judge Gilbert Thiel, a
well-known terrorist investigating judge with responsibility
for tracking and prosecuting Corsican and Breton separatists
and "revolutionary" groups, a catch-all phrase for militant
groups with anti-capitalist and anti-establishment
sympathies. As an author of two books on the French justice
system ("Don't Wake the Sleeping Judge" and the
just-published "Masterful Insomnias") and commentator on
terrorism issues, Thiel, along with Judges Jean-Louis
Bruguiere and Jean-Francois Ricard who focus on Islamic
terrorism, are the public faces of the French state's fight
against terrorism. (Comment: Many French distinguish between
the government, which represents the political party in power
and "l'etat," or "the state," made up of career government
employees that embody the ethos of nonpartisan continuity;
for example, the terrorism investigating judges. End
comment) Thiel, Bruguiere and Ricard belong to an elite
group of six investigating judges known collectively as the
"Galerie Saint-Eloi," which refers to the wing in the
12th-century Palais de Justice that houses their offices. In
France's legal system, investigating judges wield substantial
powers of investigation. Moreover, legal and police
procedures for terrorism-related matters are considerably
looser than those in other criminal cases, which affords the
terrorism investigating judges arguably the freest rein to

conduct their inquiries. In keeping with their status and
with the sensitivity of their dossiers, all the terrorism
investigating judges are assigned permanent security details
by the Ministry of Interior.


3. (C) Asked if any additional legal reforms were envisaged
following the 2004 entry into force of the Perben II law (an
omnibus legal reform bill that included the restricted
institution of plea bargaining and the implementation of the
European Arrest Warrant),Thiel replied, "I hope not." He
explained that the French legal system had experienced a wave
of reforms from the 1990s through 2004 (which alternately
strengthened the rights of the accused and victims) that it
was still trying to digest. Nevertheless, said Thiel, the
job of the terrorism investigating judges had not changed
significantly, primarily because terrorism investigations are
in a category to themselves, and are granted significant
leeway. The reforms of Perben II, said Thiel, primarily
increase the panoply of tools used by police and judicial
officials in other criminal investigations. Still, added
Thiel, Perben II helps the terrorism judges because police
and intelligence services now have an expanded legal
jurisdiction to conduct electronic surveillance. Prior to
Perben II, said Thiel, some individuals in the security
services conducted electronic surveillance they knew was
illegal but necessary to their investigation, actions that
Thiel said were no longer necessary.

TARGETING THE "FOLKLORE" OF CORSICAN SEPARATISM


4. (C) In 2004, the Ministry of Interior reported that 154
people were arrested in connection with the steady number of
low-level explosions that have occurred on the island of
Corsica since the 1950s. In general, the explosions target
symbols of French government authority, but they do not harm
or kill anyone. One notable exception was the assassination
in 1999 of Claude Erignac, the prefect of Corsica and as
such, the highest-ranking French official on the island.
Thiel said Corsican separatists were increasingly fragmented
and transitioning into familial-based clans in which
separatist goals were not necessarily the first priority.
Clan vendettas and the anti-immigrant targeting of North
Africans were vying with traditional separatist aims for
prominence, said Thiel. Although he believed that violent
Corsican separatism would continue for the foreseeable
future, he noticed a diminution in the effectiveness and
quality of the attacks. This was due, said Thiel, to a
change in French government policy in the early 1990s.
Previously, governments would arrest separatists and then, in
the hopes of arriving at a political solution, would grant
general amnesties to all separatists in prison every few
years. The imprisoned militants would return with great
acclaim to Corsica, where they would then recommence their
separatist activities, said Thiel. The government changed
this policy in the 1990s, and began to treat separatists not
as freedom fighters but as criminals and terrorists. When
the penalties became 8, 10, 15 years or even life in prison,
Corsican militants became less willing to conduct separatist
attacks, said Thiel. The judge also said it helped that
those with the most technical mastery of explosives were the
ones given the lengthiest prison sentences. By treating
Corsican separatism as a criminal justice issue, Thiel said,
the French government minimized the "folklore" of Corsican
separatism. This, combined with long prison sentences, has
made the Corsican separatist problem more manageable,
according to Thiel.

A RESURGENCE OF EUROPEAN ANTI-CAPITALIST REVOLUTIONARIES?


5. (C) Thiel led the judicial investigation into the
explosion in 2000 at a McDonald's in Brittany which resulted
in one death. He said Breton separatism is at a very low
level and the militants are "amateurs." More worrying,
according to Thiel, is the reappearance of anti-capitalist
militants. Some, such as the group that bombed the
McDonald's, combine anticapitalist ideology with separatist
goals. The goal of these anti-capitalist, anti-establishment
militants, said Thiel, was to reapply and reinvigorate the
1960s mantra of similar groups such as Action Directe and the
Red Brigades: action (by the government) - provocation (by
the terrorist groups) - repression (by the government, which
would theoretically lead to a revolution). In the last few
years, said Thiel, he had noticed an increase in propaganda
and fund-raising by these new groups, especially derivatives
of the Italian Red Brigades that lived in the Italian/French
border region, Spanish anticapitalists who lived in the
French Basque region and a few Breton
separatists/anticapitalists who lived in Brittany. Thiel
said cooperation with the Italian and Spanish governments
against these groups was good, although he said it was more
difficult with the Italians because of their decentralized
justice system that made it harder to coordinate effectively
with all of Italy's regions. Although the use of 1960s and
1970s "revolutionary" terrorism was something the French
security and judicial services were keeping track of, Thiel
said the movements still appeared atomized and was made up of
militants with little explosives and arms training, a
situation that Thiel said France was working to continue.
Leach