DRM (Direction du renseignement militaire)

Status and functions

According to a Ministry of the Armed Forces brochure, the DRM is one of the six first-circle services and the intelligence service of the armed forces, reporting to the Chief of the Defence Staff.¹

It produces intelligence of military significance: it assesses the capabilities and possible actions of armed forces or groups – including private military companies and armed terrorist groups – that could threaten French interests. It supports the decisions of the highest civilian and military authorities and supports forces on operations.¹

Origins

At the hearing of the Director of the DRM, General Didier Bolelli, before the National Assembly’s defence committee on 19 February 2013, the committee chair, Patricia Adam, recalled that the DRM was created in 1992 on the initiative of Defence Minister Pierre Joxe, to learn the lessons of the Gulf War and to analyse information from a specifically military perspective. She called the DRM “a little-known but not secret body”.²

Organisation according to the 2013 hearing

The DRM is an autonomous service integrated into the armed forces; its Director also advises the Minister of Defence on military intelligence. According to the Director, the service then had 1,620 staff, about 80% of them from the three armed services; its budget was about €155 million a year.²

Its main sites are Paris (the directorate and the J2 cell at the Centre for Planning and Conduct of Operations) and Creil, home to the centres for imagery analysis, electromagnetic signals and human intelligence training. The DRM draws on imagery, electronic and human intelligence; satellites and drones are funded by the Defence Staff, not the DRM.²

The 2013 figures may be out of date; we have found no more recent figures in open sources.^1,2

Relations with other services

The DRM cooperates with the DGSE and other services, among other things under an agreement (the convention Lagrange) that pools some resources and provides for joint crisis cells. According to its Director, the DRM does not conduct covert action, but it may make its technical resources available to the DGSE.²

As a first-circle service, the DRM is subject to CNCTR oversight when using intelligence techniques and to oversight by the Parliamentary Intelligence Delegation.^3,4