Philippe Rondot is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 retired general, formerly an important personality of the French intelligence. He worked for both the domestic intelligence DST

Direction de la surveillance du territoire

The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire was a directorate of the French National Police operating as a domestic intelligence agency. It was responsible for counterespionage, counterterrorism and more generally the security of France against foreign threats and interference...

 and the foreign intelligence DGSE (traditionally rival services) and was councilor to several Defence ministers (either Right or Left-wing).

Career

Philippe Rondot was born in 1936 in a family of military officers (his father was a general and a veteran of a paratrooper commando).

After studies at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr

École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr

The École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr is the foremost French military academy. Its official name is . It is often referred to as Saint-Cyr . Its motto is "Ils s'instruisent pour vaincre": literally "They study to vanquish" or "Training for victory"...

, he was awarded a PhD in political sociology. He joined the "special services" in 1965 as an officer of the "action" branch of the SDECE (ancestor of the present DGSE). In the late 1970s, he joined the DST. In 1994, he was active in the capture of terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (aka "Carlos the Jackal") in Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, by tracking down Sánchez inside Sudan and making Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi

Hassan al-Turabi

Dr. Hassan 'Abd Allah al-Turabi , commonly called Hassan al-Turabi , is a religious and Islamist political leader in Sudan, who may have been instrumental in institutionalizing sharia in the northern part of the...

 and the Sudanese government admit that they were harboring him. He also took part in hostage liberations in Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

 and Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

.

From 1997, he was in charge of coordinating intelligence at the Defence Ministry, until he retired on the 31st of December 2005. His title was "conseiller pour le renseignement et les opérations spéciales" ("councillor for intelligence and special operations") of the Defence minister, first Alain Richard

Alain Richard

Alain Richard, born on 29 August 1945, in Paris, is a French politician. An alumnus of the Ecole nationale d'administration, he was mayor of Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône and member of the French parliament, elected in Val d'Oise. A member of the French socialist party and ally of Lionel Jospin, he was the...

 and later Michèle Alliot-Marie

Michèle Alliot-Marie

Michèle Jeanne Honorine Alliot-Marie, born 10 September 1946 and nicknamed MAM, is a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement . A member of all but one right-wing governments of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, she was the first woman in France to hold the portfolios of Defense , the...

.

Second Clearstream Affair

The second Clearstream

Clearstream

Clearstream Banking S.A. is the clearing and settlement division of Deutsche Börse, based in Luxembourg and Frankfurt. Clearstream was created in January 2000 through the merger of Cedel International and Deutsche Börse Clearing...

 affair is an episode of the enquiry regarding the selling of Lafayette class frigates

La Fayette class frigate

The La Fayette class units are light multi-mission frigates built by DCN and operated by French Marine Nationale...

 to Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

 by Thomson, then directed by Alain Gomez.

After receiving a Clearstream listing from Jean-Louis Gergorin, Philippe Rondot directed an inquiry, following orders from the minister of Defence, and reporting to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin

Dominique de Villepin

Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin is a French politician who served as the Prime Minister of France from 31 May 2005 to 17 May 2007....

directly. This caused Rondot's house to be searched in March 2006, and himself to be audited, by judges Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons.