After the London bombings the British held an emergency gathering of the minds to share intelligence. After the meeting it is said that the French antiterrorism coordinator leaked some specifics to Le Monde. Naughty.

Here is an article on the leak.
French leak stirs fury in Britain

The British are pretty livid..I know my dad is on and on about it today..combine this with the comments said prior by Chirac about British food and contributions to farming along with what happened with the EU negotiations and we have a real massive downfall in relations between the British and the French.

To be debated..

The British claim that the information released to the French papers was incorrect..and have even gone so far as to ask out loud what was France's motivation to release false evidence/claims on purpose? Do you believe France has ulterior motives ? And if so what and why?

Has this or will this mishandling of shared intelligence have lasting effects on the sharing and divulging of intelligence amongst European nations as a whole?

What was France's motivation to release false evidence/claims on purpose?

I have no ties with the French intelligence agencies, but I believe this manoeuver was set to discredit British Intelligence... and ultimately British representatives.


Do you believe France has ulterior motives ? And if so what and why?

No one has an interest in seeing terrorists succeed, so I'm ruling out this possibility right away. France's recent declarations are not about terrorists, but about regaining influence over the EU.

Supposing that it is the case, I can understand the strategy at work here. But as a Frenchman, I find that it unproper and unfair. I don't believe that France's aura will shine brighter after this.

Has this or will this mishandling of shared intelligence have lasting effects on the sharing and divulging of intelligence amongst European nations as a whole?

I hope not, sincerely. Again, I am not an intelligence professional, but I DO know that efficient sharing of information relies primarily on trust... If it is broken, it will be hard to regain.

I have heard that the French were furious that British sources leaked information about this to the media. Perhaps this was a retaliation?


I doubt any one else in Europe really cares... at least not amongst the general population.


I wouldn't put too much store in what is said in public. The politicians may be squabbling amongst themselves, but as the article above indicates, under the surface the people doing the actual work are cooperating nicely with scant regard to the petty temper tantrums of the politicians.

I'm not worried by this at all. It seems like a few bruised ego's at the top are being blown out of all proportion.

I tend to agree with Moif on this one- I believe that the "big four" in the intelligence arena against Al-Quaida (France, Germany, Britain and the US) really don't give a rats fanny about politics, at least not at the non-appointed non-elected level, but at the professional level, they are pretty much all out to catch the bad guys.

I work at a criminal unit for mental health- and the most interesting and exciting, and occasionally dangerous, part of my job is that fugitives like to hide out in mental institutions- and we like to try to figure who they are, before, you know, they find a need to kill or harm us , so far, in my 18 years there, we have had about 10 internationally searched for bad guys (not terrorists, but murderers all of them, just the good old fashioned murder, not for a reason) turn up in my hospital- not usually on the criminal unit, but on the "open" unit- you see, confidentiality is a great cover for bad guys- the mental health field is constrained by law from giving out information on patients- since then, without going into detail, we have come up with a set of systems, with help from interpol and the federal marshals, about how to recognize these guys, how to identify them, how to help apprehend them (the marshalls come here and do thier thing, we don't make like we even know what is going on ) -

I use this example, because, no matter what the politics, the goverment employees, those that have a career in a goverment job, not elected, not appointed, go with the flow of the department- and consider all those appointees and elected officials "temp employees" to be tolerated when we have to, and ignored when we can.

I have never seen it otherwise in my life anyway!