Influential editor of French magazine L’Express was ‘highly rated’ KGB spy for 35 years

Philippe Grumbach was a widely respected journalist in France – Jacques Haillot/Sygma

An influential French journalist and editor lived a double life as a “highly rated” KGB spy for 35 years, according to  L’Express magazine, his former employer.

Philippe Grumbach worked for French news outlets including L’Agence Francaise de Presse – now AFP – and Libération, as well as the centre-Right news magazine L’Express, where he worked as editor, political director and editor-in-chief in the 1970s.

‌But L’Express has revealed that from 1946 to 1981, he was also in the service of the KGB under the alias “Brok”, feeding the Soviet secret service information about his friends in high places, most notably François Mitterrand and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing during the French presidential election of 1974.

Grumbach was unmasked by a French PhD student who came across the journalist’s name while studying the Mitrokhin archives, a collection of highly classified documents smuggled out of Moscow and handed to British intelligence in 1992 by Soviet defector and senior archivist Vasili Mitrokhin.

In the papers, Grumbach was described as a well-connected journalist and “one of the most highly rated and longest-serving agents”.

An entry in the archive said: “‘Brok’, born in 1924, Jewish, citizen Frenchman, director of the newspaper L’Express, has collaborated since 1946.

“[He] has good personal relations with Edgar Faure, Mitterrand, the Minister of Affairs foreigners Schumann, Defferre and Servan-Schreiber, the latter entrusted him with the mission to resolve delicate issues, liaison with representatives and leaders of political parties and groups.”

Philippe Grumbach and friend Sylvie de Waldner at an event in the French capital in 1985 – WWD/Penske Media

‌The detailed description left little doubt that “Brok” was indeed Grumbach.

L’Express also received confirmation from Grumbach’s wife, Nicole, who said her late husband confessed to being a spy a few years before his death in 2003.

The revelation is all the more surprising as Grumbach had long been associated with the centre-Right UDP party since the 1970s.

‘Exaggerated his capacities’

According to the Mitrokhin files, Grumbach was originally recruited as an ideological agent, but likely continued working for the money.

Between 1976 and 1978, he was paid 399,000 francs, the equivalent of £215,600, L’Express reported.

Though details of his missions are sparse, the archives mention one particular assignment tantamount to more recent Russian election interference in the West.

Grumbach was tasked with fomenting conflict among the Right-wing candidates of the 1974 presidential election Giscard d’Estaing and his rival Jacques Chaban-Delmas.

The assignment involved sending Chaban-Delmas fabricated documents from the Americans which offered Giscard d’Estaing advice on how to win the election.

‌In 1981, the KGB dispensed with Grumbach. According to the Mitrokhin files, Grumbach was deemed insincere and deceptive in his contacts with officers.

By then, the Soviets suspected that he had “exaggerated his capacities” for information and the value of his information, as well as showing a lack of discipline in carrying out his missions successfully.

In 1984 he became deputy director of Le Figaro.

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