Why honeytraps don’t work on French spies: ‘My wife already knows'

A new documentary has revealed why honeytrap schemes rarely work on French agents

French spies are immune honeytrap schemes because their wives already know they are cheating, a new documentary has revealed.

Honey-trapping is an investigative practice where one person uses romantic or sexual enticement to manipulate another person into revealing confidential information. This technique is often used in espionage and intelligence gathering to seduce and subsequently blackmail foreign officials.

However, Russians realised that attempts to honeytrap French officials usually go in vain because their wives already know of their affairs, said a report in The Telegraph. According to an intelligence agent for the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency, Russians realised that trying to blackmail French officers is pointless.

“Go ahead, my wife already knows,” is the standard reply from French spies to blackmail attempts, the DGSE agent identified only as Nicolas explained in the documentary.

The documentary, called “The Making of Secret Agents”, aired on French television on Tuesday night, reported the Daily Mail.

In the documentary, DGSE agent Nicolas said that Russian agents have spoken about the “French paradox” with regard to honey-trapping. “If you surprised a Frenchman with a mistress by telling him, we’ve caught you red-handed with a 22-year-old called Tatyana, work for us or we’ll tell your wife, it didn’t work,” he said.

Threatening to tell the agent’s wife would usually be met with a response like “Go ahead, show her, she’ll understand” or “she already knows about it.”