Marine Le Pen or Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the Élysée? How Secret Services Are Bracing for Street Revolt

One has to pinch oneself: everything in this book foreshadowed the upheaval of October 17. Take this exchange with an intelligence official in April 2026. Faced with surging fuel prices and medical deserts, the senior civil servant expressed surprise that the French were not taking to the streets in droves. "The rallying catalyst is likely missing," he noted, five months before the start of the student movement. Yet he was unequivocal, concluding that reports from the field pointed to an impending... "revolt." Another high-ranking official shared his haunting, premonitory dread: "A convergence of struggles uniting the countryside and the suburban banlieues."

In La Nouvelle Armée des ombres (Albin Michel), Pierre Gastineau, Antoine Izambard, and Franck Renaud—journalists at Intelligence Online, an outlet specializing in intelligence affairs—tackle the most taboo security scenario: how French secret services are preparing in case the Republic is jeopardized. Foreign attacks, riots, a coup d'état... The darkest hypotheses are dissected by the authors, the first two of whom already drew attention last year for Les Espions du président (Albin Michel, 2025), an unprecedented investigation into Emmanuel Macron's obsession with the shadow world. Staggering anecdotes abound. Did you know that the predecessor of the DGSE, the SDECE, had set up covert subversion networks in case of a communist takeover in France? That these networks lasted until 1981? That Guy Marchand (yes, the actor) took part in ultra-secret operations? The book also reveals that a DGSE backup headquarters, accessible in the event of a foreign invasion, was built... on the charming island of Saint-Barthélemy, best known for Johnny Hallyday’s villa.

The 2027 Presidential Election

The story of the DGSE's secret slush fund, told for the first time in its entirety, is worth the detour: for decades, the French secret service funneled tens of millions of euros into private circuits, investing in real estate as well as ready-to-wear fashion labels such as Jean-Louis Scherrer and Harel. This slush fund was meant to finance operations that were as urgent as they were discreet. A well-oiled machine until the Alain Duménil wrench hit the gears. In 2002, this shrewd businessman agreed to bail out struggling companies held by the DGSE—a detail he claims he never knew—but immediately pushed through a 60-million-euro capital increase to become the sole master on board. The French secret service considered itself swindled. The dispute escalated all the way to an intimidation operation targeting the businessman at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport on March 12, 2016. Private photos were shown to him, and he was ordered to pay up. These actions were deemed an attempted extortion by the courts, resulting in a one-year suspended prison sentence for then-DGSE director Bernard Bajolet, who has appealed.

The most pressing passages concern the 2027 presidential election. Intelligence services are already training to repel potential Russian interference during the campaign. In early 2025, the DGSE designed a top-secret exercise simulating direct electoral manipulation. Scenarios involving coordinated cyberattacks, or unrest in overseas territories intended to strip mainland police forces of resources, are being scrutinized. It is also revealed that in utmost secrecy, a "new bunker in the Parisian suburbs" was recently built should the President of the Republic have to evacuate a besieged or overrun Élysée Palace. Under this last scenario, disorder could stem from riots in Paris—a prospect several state services are actively working on.

Excerpts

January 7, 2026, 5:00 p.m. In an upscale café in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, a top French intelligence figure, with a long history in special forces, shares a scenario being analyzed within the Special Operations Command (COS): what role would commandos play if an elderly far-left leader, losing the presidential election once again, called for an insurrection in the event of a far-right victory, or contested the outcome altogether? At this precise moment in history, the assumption still seems highly improbable to those examining it.

April 17, 2026, 6:30 p.m., inside one of the temples of the Republic. Over an exquisite Breton whisky, the resident shares one of his growing fears: public security mechanisms will need serious reinforcement should the National Rally (RN) win the presidency. According to him, weak signals are multiplying, suggesting that a protest movement spurred by the far-left could march on Paris and incite insurrectional riots. We glance at our glass, thinking that this Trégor Single Malt is decidedly potent.

May 9, 2026, 4:16 p.m., a news alert from Le Figaro. The newly appointed mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, tells Muslim community media outlet Oumma: "Either it's us, or it's them (...), meaning the extreme right." About ten minutes later, he asserts his "deep conviction that the people will rise up" in the event of an RN victory. He confirms on LCI on May 11 that, in his view, "if the National Rally is elected in 2027, the candidate will have institutional legitimacy, but never popular legitimacy." The excerpt spreads rapidly across Interior Ministry WhatsApp groups.

The Coming Shock

Such a scenario seemed like fiction until just a few months ago. At the Paris Police Prefecture, the control tower of capital security, that prospect no longer seems so implausible. Shortly after the Saint-Denis mayor's remarks, we meet with a senior official at the institution, to whom we disclose the premise of this book: preparing for the coming shock. He widens his feline eyes before bursting into loud laughter: "That's very funny, because that is exactly what I am working on day and night right now!" The Prefecture, he reveals, under the helm of its new chief—Macron's former chief of staff and former DGSE official Patrice Faure—has been multiplying preparatory meetings since the start of the year to overhaul its operating doctrines. The objective is to maintain state continuity, "whatever it takes," to borrow the consecrated phrase.

What about post-election rioting? "We're going to need every available man, charging into action as swiftly as possible with all forces at our disposal: mobile units, certainly, but also personnel from every single department. If the unrest takes hold, that is where the danger to the state becomes critical." These are the marching orders issued by the prefect to his units at the Directorate of Public Order and Traffic, the front line in any confrontation. With one caveat: should a fatal incident occur during these interventions, it would only pour fuel on the fire.

Work-to-Rule

This tension is compounded by fears that within certain public sectors generally perceived as left-leaning—such as the judiciary or vital infrastructure operators (telecoms)—an RN victory could trigger a work-to-rule protest amid high social tensions, meaning public sector workers might refuse to support law enforcement operations.

Conversely, for certain police strategists, a victory by La France Insoumise (LFI) could generate the reverse problem: fed up with chants like "The police kill," "ACAB," and similar rhetoric, segments of domestic security forces might be tempted by a deliberate shutdown or mass go-slow, crippling efforts to contain the skirmishes that would undoubtedly erupt across the country.

Such volatility would inevitably draw the attention of hostile foreign powers. A wave of amplified content pushed by algorithms from Russian and Chinese networks to polarize and escalate post-electoral unrest appears highly probable, given how opportunistic these actors are at the slightest hint of crisis, notes a strategic forecasting official.

Penetration Tests

For one serving security executive, early warnings of such an operation could emerge in France's overseas territories in the weeks leading up to the election. If social media algorithms, steered by Russia or its proxies, fuel separatist surges in New Caledonia or the French West Indies that erupt into riots, it could indicate an effort to pin down mainland police units thousands of kilometers away, leaving the mainland short-staffed on voting day.

However, the most destructive threat would likely be a cyberattack crippling security forces' communication networks right in the middle of crowd-control operations. At the Interior Ministry, the Paris Police Prefecture, and the DGSI, penetration tests are continuously conducted to defend against this. Yet relying on them blindly is difficult, considering the ministry's track record. Following multiple intrusions in 2025, a fifteen-year-old teenager managed, in April 2026, to access the core database of the supposedly ultra-secure National Agency for Secure Titles (ANTS), which manages all French citizen identity credentials. He breached the system using a trivial flaw identified back in 2007, known to every IT security head and cyber agency ever since. There is little doubt that foreign intelligence agencies spotted that gaping vulnerability long before the teenager did.

Analog Service

Faced with the threat of a cyberattack on Election Day, Paris Police Prefect Patrice Faure instructed his teams in June 2026 to conduct a large-scale drill: operating without the Neo device for an entire day. Neo (Nouvel Équipement Opérationnel) is the smartphone carried daily by every police officer to file reports, communicate with peers, and access police databases (criminal records, ID checks, etc.). "Today, you don't have a single cop who can work without their Neo. Hit the system with a cyberattack and the entire national police force is blind," a gendarme points out. Relearning how to "operate without it" has become a vital pillar of police resilience.

It is 2026, and the entire police apparatus is digitally connected and vulnerable to cyber disruptions. The entire force? Not quite. A small enclave of defiant officers continues to resist digitization. Long ridiculed by their DGSI counterparts for their technical backwardness, the Intelligence Directorate of the Paris Police Prefecture (DRPP) could ultimately turn its technological lag into an asset. Having weathered every single intelligence restructuring designed to dissolve or merge it, the directorate still conducts business largely... on paper. Dossiers and intelligence memos are handed over manually, occasionally drafted on antiquated computers. What looks like an archaic relic in peacetime could become an invaluable operational shield during a major crisis.

Contingency Plans for an Insurrection

Our source at the Paris Police Prefecture remains silent on the matter due to its political sensitivity, but other forces are standing by should conditions deteriorate. "At the COS, within the 13th Parachute Dragoon Regiment (13th RDP), we have indeed run assessments on deploying military backup in the event of an armed insurrection." One chief concern is that arms caches controlled by narcotics networks could ultimately be co-opted for "political" violence.

It is often forgotten that special operations regiments were part of Cold War emergency protocols in the event of an invasion or insurrection. A veteran of the 13th RDP recalls: "Under such plans, our regiment was tasked with securing the perimeter of the National Assembly against external threats. Quite ironic, when you reflect on it: a former putschist regiment guarding the palace of the Republic..." Excluding the support rendered by soldiers of Operation Sentinelle during the Yellow Vests crisis, the last time the French military deployed on national soil in combat posture dates back to the Algerian War.

Pandora's Box

Today, the real operational dilemma would be executing rapid interventions in Paris or its immediate suburbs. "The legal frameworks are established, but extreme caution is warranted," notes a senior civil servant. Special forces operatives would be requisitioned by the prefect—either the Paris Police Prefect or a neighboring department's prefect—to reinforce police and gendarmerie firepower.

Deploying combat troops domestically to crush domestic "insurgents" remains an old fantasy of the hard right. Yet a veteran commander who has led special forces and DGSE detachments—hardly suspected of leftist sympathies—reflects cautiously on the political risks of such a move: "What frightens me about opening this Pandora's box is not public opinion—I am convinced the public would back it—but the executive itself. The president or the government would realize how effective it is to deploy military forces authorized to neutralize [a military euphemism for killing] French citizens on domestic soil. For me, that is the greatest peril: that the Prince develops a taste for it..."