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Mary Reid and Phone-Tapping

01 January 1994

Phone-tapping revelations, centred on those connected to the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of Mary Reid and two other Irish citizens in a Paris suburb in the early 1980s, are threatening to drag President Mitterand into an embarrassing scandal (see Statewatch vol 3 no 3). In the spring of last year Libration published the transcripts of phone taps authorised by a cell established by two key figures involved in the Reid raid, Christian Prouteau a close friend of Mitterand, and Captain Paul Barril, the leader of the raid. The paper also published a list of names of those whose phones were tapped, including Reid's lawyer, Antoine Comte. Prouteau and Barril appear to have organised the cell initially as an anti-terrorist operation, but without the knowledge of the official security services. The interests of the cell soon extended to political figures, a film star (Carole Bouquet) and journalists, including Edwy Plenel, an investigative journalist with Le Monde, who did much to expose the "Irish Three" case. Mitterand's former senior security adviser, Gilles Menage who is now director of the French electricity authority EDF, has been interviewed by Judge Vallat regarding complaints by those whose phones were tapped. While at the Elyse Palace, Menage authorised the monitoring of the phone of the former socialist prime minister, Michel Rocard. Paul Barril himself came under surveillance after leaving the cell and falling out with Prouteau and Menage.

The European, 14-20.1.94; Statewatch contributor.