The digitized data are gathered by small teams of half a dozen officials working there and are forwarded en bloc to Paris for analysis. One of the advantages for France of having DOM's and TOM's evenly dotted across the planet is that it can set interception stations up in them. This is how one of them came to be secretly installed at the Kourou space base. It is used to monitor American and South American satellite communications in particular, a fact confirmed to Le Point by several sources. Foregoing its isolation on intelligence matters, our country has invited the Germans to come in on the operation.
Foreign airlines are particularly dangerous, as most are government-controlled.
Offices, hotels, and mobile phones are key targets. Faxes, telexes, and computers can be electronically intercepted. All the same, the French have their hands tied in this cut-throat competition surrounding the interception of communications. A small experimental interception device, Cerise, was launched in August 1995 at the same time, but the Zenon heavy interception satellite project has had to be abandoned owing to budgetary constraints. Be that as it may, the new Europe stands in need of such a tool, and it could usefully be developed as a joint project.