DGSE

abbreviation of Direction Gnrale De La Scurit Extrieure (General Board of External Security), formerly (194781) Sdece, or Service De Documentation Extrieure Et De Contre-espionnage (External Documentation and Counterespionage Service), secret intelligence and counterintelligence service that operates under the defense ministry of the French government. This agency was established in 1947 to combine under one head a variety of separate agencies, some dating from the time of Napoleon and some from the Free French of World War II. It was independent until the mid-1960s, when the SDECE was discovered to have been involved in the kidnapping and presumed murder of Mehdi Ben Barka, a Moroccan revolutionary living in Paris. Following this scandal, the agency was placed under the control of the defense ministry. It was restructured in 1981. DGSE gathers foreign intelligence and provides internal security. Details of its operations and organization are not made public.