3,257
edits
Changes
→Summary
==Summary==
The creation of a central French state in the 16th and 17th centuries and internal unrest that came during the Protestant Reformation led to the development of spy networks within France that attempted to facilitate the French state's power. In the French Revolution, spies often switched sides and the great upheaval and fear caused by the state led to great fear of spies, both by the government and the population. The disaster of the Franco-Prussian war helped shape the French Republic's first professional spying agency that did have some notable success, but the state's downfall in World War II and the rise of the Cold War subsequently shaped new internal and external spy agencies. Since the 2000s, terrorism and technology espionage have been seen as the greatest threats that France's spy agencies have attempted to counter.
==References==
