Former DGSE "Spy" says France has lost industrial sovereignty to the US

The French external intelligence agency DGSE is famous for gathering economic secrets from opponents, like Russia. [1]

Like the current CIA and former Mossad directors, DGSE has a relatively high political profile. In that regard some of DGSE's former leaders are politically outspoken.

Cyceon, a French political and economic magazine reports (with extra links in blue from Pete)  March 22, 2018:

"France has lost industrial sovereignty to the USA, says a former DGSE"

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Cyceon in Articles

“We can no longer make an atomic submarine in France without American authorization,” Alain Juillet, a former paratrooper of the Service Action (SA) and director of intelligence at the Directorate-General of External Security (DGSE), told a French National Assembly’s committee.

Citing the example of Rafale fighter planes that France could no longer deliver to Egypt because of the [US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)] legislation that prohibits the export of US technological components without authorization from the US government, Alain Juillet reminds that the sale of Alstom to General Electric (GE), for which the current President Emmanuel Macron was decisive, has transferred to the United States the production of turbines essential to French nuclear-powered submarines, the keystone of the French nuclear deterrent.

“It’s an absolute loss of sovereignty, that’s the reality,” asserts the former senior official of French business intelligence to the Prime Minister. “As long as the production is in France, we can still negotiate, but we cannot sell a single submarine abroad without having the green light if we use these turbines,” he adds.

The sale of Alstom in 2014 sparked strong protests among the French armed forces and intelligence services, seeing it as a serious attack on the principle of independence and national sovereignty. France is still today the third nuclear military power in the world after the United States and Russia."

BACKGROUND (from Pete)

Alstom is a broad based French conglomerate. Alstom's Power Systems arm, amongst other activities, is involved in the construction and maintenance of nuclear power stations. 

Given France's dual-use military-civilian nuclear industry structure any entity, like US General Electric-Hitachi involved in France's nuclear power stations will also have some knowledge and influence over France's military nuclear effort.

This French effort may include knowledge and influence in the production of Plutonium and Tritium for French nuclear weapons and some enrichment of Low Enrished Uranium for France's nuclear propelled submarines (ie. for France's K15 and the follow-on reactor (soon to be revealed)).

[1] Have a look at this revealing article on the DGSE website, which states in its second footnote:

"[2] The literature sent by the [DGSE] is sent to over one hundred French institutional recipients, in particular to the presidential administration, to the Prime Minister’s office, to the Ministry of Defence, to the Ministry of the Interior, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, etc."