Lvmh, all about the French scandal between intelligence and politics
The "Squarcini affair" is linked to the activities of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (Lvmh). The article by Giuseppe Gagliano
Prosecutors in France have called for a trial involving the former head of France's national intelligence agency, a former senior Paris police official and a retired appellate court judge, among others.
The case has become known in France as the "Squarcini affair": Bernard Squarcini headed the French Directorate-General for Internal Security (DGSI) from 2008 to 2012.
THE ROLE OF SQUARCINI IN INTELLIGENCE
In 2008, the DST merged with the Central Directorate of General Intelligence (RG) of the French National Police, thus creating the new DGSI. Squarcini was the first director of the DGSI until 2012, when he was fired by the French socialist president, François Hollande, once the latter assumed the French presidency. Hollande is believed to have seen Squarcini as politically aligned with Hollande's centre-right predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.
KYRNOS AND RELATIONS WITH LOUIS VUITTON
Following his dismissal, Squarcini founded Kyrnos, a consulting firm that offers intelligence services to private-sector clients. Among Kyrnos' biggest clients was Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), a Paris-based conglomerate whose holdings include several dozen subsidiaries, including very prestigious brands such as Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Tiffany & Co., Christian Dior, Bulgari and others. LVMH's CEO and its “public face” is Bernard Arnault, who is currently rated as the richest individual in the world by Fortune magazine.
In 2021 LVMH paid an $11.2 million fine to settle allegations that the firm hired Squarcini to acquire confidential documents related to government investigations into several rival firms and to spy on private individuals for LVMH. Lawyers involved in the case hailed the decision at the time as "a decisive step […] in an unprecedented case showing how [the] intelligence services were being used for private purposes."
ALL ALLEGATIONS
But the 2021 case sparked a series of investigations once the list of Squarcini's surveillance targets became known. Among these targets was Francois Ruffin, a left-wing Labor activist and documentary producer, who was investigating LVMH's financial dealings for a film it was producing. Squarcini is one of the main suspects in this new round of investigations, as are other former top government officials, including a senior French national police officer and a former appellate court judge.
The defendants face a variety of charges, including conspiracy to defraud clients, receiving payments from private companies to influence government policies, and violating the secrecy and professional codes associated with being a public official. Now the French news agency Agence France Presse reports that the team of prosecutors in charge of this new round of investigations has asked the judges to order a trial of the suspects. This means that prosecutors believe they have amassed enough evidence to convict the suspects of the charges brought against them.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/francia-intelligence-affare-squarcini/ on Sun, 08 Jan 2023 07:16:43 +0000.