US embassy cable - 05PARIS1569

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