The BBC has an interesting report on a French university training spies:
University professor Xavier Crettiez admits that he doesn't know the real names of many of the students on his course.
This is a highly unusual state of affairs in the world of academia, but Prof Crettiez's work is far from standard.
Instead, he helps train France's spies.
"I rarely know the intelligence agents' backgrounds when they are sent on the course, and I doubt the names I'm given are genuine anyway," he says.
If you wanted to create a setting for a spy school, then the campus of Sciences Po Saint-Germain on the outskirts of Paris seems a good fit.
With dour, even gloomy-looking, early 20th Century buildings surrounded by busy, drab roads and large, intimidating metal gates, it has a very discreet feel.
Where it does stand out is its unique diploma that brings together more typical students in their early 20s, and active members of the French secret services, usually between the ages of 35 and 50.
The course is called Diplôme sur le Renseignement et les Menaces Globales, which translates as Diploma of Intelligence and Global Threats.
It was developed by the university in association with the Academie du Renseignement, the training arm of the French secret services.
This came following a request from French authorities a decade ago. After the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the government went on a large recruitment drive within the French intelligence agencies.
It asked Sciences Po, one of France's leading universities, to come up with a new course to both train potential new spies, and provide continuous training for current agents.
Large French companies were also quick to show an interest, both in getting their security staff onto the course, and snapping up many of the younger graduates.
The diploma is made up of 120 hours of classwork with modules spread over four months. For external students – the spies and those on placement from businesses – it costs around €5,000 ($5,900; £4,400).
The core aim of the course is to identify threats wherever they are, and how to track and overcome them. The key topics include the economics of organized crime, Islamic jihadism, business intelligence gathering and political violence.
To attend one of the classes and speak to the students I had to be vetted first by the French security services. The theme of the lesson I joined was "intelligence and over-reliance on technology".
One of the students I speak to is a man in his 40s who goes by the name Roger. He tells me in very precise, clipped English that he is investment banker. He adds: "I provide consultancy across west Africa, and I joined the course to provide risk assessments to my clients there."
Prof Crettiez, who teaches political radicalisation, says there has been a huge expansion in the French secret services in recent years. And that there are now around 20,000 agents in what he called the "inner circle".
This is made up of the DGSE, which looks at matters overseas, and is the French equivalent of the UK's MI6 or the US's CIA. And the DGSI, which focuses on threats within France, like the UK's MI5 or the US's FBI.
But he says it's not just about terrorism. "There are the two main security agencies, but also Tracfin an intelligence agency which specializes in money laundering.
"It is preoccupied with the surge in mafia activity, especially in southern France, including corruption in the public and private sectors mainly due to massive profits in illegal drug trafficking."
Other lecturers on the course include a DGSE official once located in Moscow, a former French ambassador to Libya, and a senior official from Tracfin. The head of security at the French energy giant EDF also runs one module.
Twenty eight students are enrolled in this year's class. Six are spies. You can tell who they are, as they are the ones huddled together during class breaks, away from the young students, and not too overwhelmed with joy when I approach them.
Without saying their exact roles, and with arms crossed, one says the course is considered a fast-track stepping stone for a promotion from the office to field work. Another says he gets fresh ideas being in this academic environment. They signed the day's attendance form with just their first names.
Nearly half of the students in the class are in fact women. And this is a relatively recent development according to one of the lecturers, Sebastien-Yves Laurent, a specialist on technology in spying.
"Women's interest in intelligence gathering is new," he says. "They are interested because they think it will provide for a better world.
"And if there is one common thread amongst all these young students it's that they are very patriotic and that is new compared to 20 years ago.
If you are keen to apply to get on the course, French citizenship is an essential requirement, although some dual citizens are accepted.
Yet Prof Crettiez says he has to be wary. "I regularly get applications from very attractive Israeli and Russian women with amazing CVs. Unsurprisingly they are binned immediately."
In a recent group photo of the class you can immediately tell who the spies are - they had their backs to the camera.
While all the students and professional spies I met are trim and athletic, Prof Crettiez is also keen to dispel the myth of James Bond-like adventure.
"Few new recruits will end up in the field," he says. "Most French intelligence agencies jobs are desk bound."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 08, @06:33PM
Every country have a couple of those. I'm not sure this one is special in that regard. I know we have at least two public once, plus a few hush-hush once.
That isn't a very long course. There are shorter once but the big one here is a standard bachelor three year one held under the guise of being "political science". The cost is about the same; about 5k euros per semester. Also you don't need to speak French. It was the usual mix of students that thought that this would be cool, or they wanted a career in said field. Mixed in with people from the normal police, the secret police, coastguard, customs and the military. But also a lot of corporate types.
It has changed since I went. It has been shortened massively it seems, on par with that French one. It wasn't really spy school. It was mostly reading a very large amount of books and writing reports and analysis of said books. Every week.
https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lubas/i-uoh-lu-STVN26 [lunduniversity.lu.se]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday January 08, @07:10PM (3 children)
Do you have a licence for that minkey?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Thursday January 08, @09:09PM (2 children)
Loved those movies when i was a kid!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm7sM0dpFcI [youtube.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday January 08, @09:37PM
Oh yes, those were the days.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday January 08, @09:40PM
This was my favourite [youtube.com]
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Thursday January 08, @07:29PM (4 children)
... offering courses in Enshitification?
It would appear to be the fastest growing field at present!
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday January 08, @09:52PM (3 children)
Lots of them: They're called MBA programs.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 09, @01:25AM (2 children)
MBA programs deserve all the shit they get, and then some.
Personally, after I got my Masters', I effectively got the "MBA education" from working for a small company. Over the next TEN YEARS OF FULL TIME WORK (not a few semesters of partying and easy classes), I worked in every aspect of the business, from answering customer service calls to presenting our new products at trade shows, in-person product delivery installation and face-to-face customer training and feedback, investor presentations, spinoff deals, consideration and implementation of partnerships with related businesses... at the end of those years I had, from the small business perspective, what an MBA _should be_, and it's not a bad thing.
From that experience I learned: I do not want to work in people management, large numbers of people come with large numbers of problems that I just don't find interesting / engaging / productive - helping people work through those problems isn't my idea of advancing a research and development program - although it very much is a key part of any kind of program R&D or not - it's just something I'd rather delegate to people who derive greater satisfaction from doing that aspect of the work than I do. Similarly, presenting to and worse - ongoing relationships with - investors, especially banks. Some of the angels were cool people, fun to hang out with, but the banks and their tools? Thanks, no thanks, and if that means I can't be CEO (of a little company that needs to go begging for investments), well... I guess I don't really want to be CEO then. Other more mundane experiences were even more valuable: EMC testing for one thing, that was a synthesis of technical details, project management, and making some tough calls to get things moving forward instead of indefinitely stalled - yeah, nobody likes having TWO ferrites on each of these analog input cables, but if we accept them now, we move forward and launch the product on time, if we retrench and try for another round of testing, the product launch is effectively delayed for a year...
Then you get your 30 credit hour MBAs, who got a brief textbook introduction to all these things and can barely keep the names of the roles straight, much less have any real feel for what's involved and how to work with these people. It's a nice idea, watered down to the level of homeopathy.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Friday January 09, @08:30AM
Yeah but you get to send emails to random people telling them what their Top Priority is.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday January 09, @09:37PM
The basic problem I have with MBAs is that they create an entire class of people who put themselves in charge of things they don't know how to do themselves. You get people jumping in at the VP level and higher in companies that have no clue how to do anything they're managing, and as a result make stupid decisions: Bad policies, bad personnel choices, bad tactical day-to-day. They try to boil things down to buzzwords and metrics and spreadsheets so they can understand them, but in fact they don't understand them and never will, because they've never done the grunt work involved (or sometimes literally any grunt work at all).
Contrast that with your experience: You know the ins and outs of your line of business because you've done it. And I'm sure some formal training would have made it a bit easier to figure out some of the things you had to do, but ultimately it's the doing it that helped you understand what it involved.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 09, @02:16AM (2 children)
Nowadays you don't need to be that close or maybe even on premise to get photos and videos...
Sure not all of them would end up being spies, but if they show up anywhere where you might not want spies, you can flag em.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday January 09, @08:32AM (1 child)
You're assuming they're not all wearing false noses, moustaches and glasses. Wigs are a thing too. Some men even dress up as ladies. In my day, we had Boy George and the Culture Club.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 09, @08:48AM
Apparently they just turn their backs to the camera:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98nqeqnylro [bbc.com]
I would still consider that a fail.