France's intelligence services are not back yet: in April a French couple and their three children, all aged under 10, crossed Afghanistan in a Volkswagen combi. The happy family wanted to reach Uzbekistan, having set off from the Pakistani city of Peshawar. In a country immersed in instability, as again shown by the attack in which a French soldier was killed 10 days ago, their journey was enough to cause serious anxiety to any police force. And this tragicomic anecdote is sadly far from an exception.
As the number of kidnappings increases, as Afghanistan is returning to the worst days of its recent history, France's super-spies are having to concern themselves with ''extreme tourists.'' These are isolated foolhardy individuals, such as the nature lover keen to indulge in the pleasures of trout fishing in the middle of the Panjshir Valley. But there are tour operators as well. Two branch offices representing Italian and British travel agencies offer strange treks or ''adventure trips.'' What is the price of such an adventure? Almost 4,000 euros for a fortnight, with locally trained Afghan guides.
Some French citizens are trying their luck - sometimes putting themselves in danger. In August a young tourist arrived at Kabul airport, where a guide was supposed to meet her. She waited for her guide for two hours before being taken in charge and repatriated by embassy staff. ''The airport is full of foreign troops, so the risk there was very limited,'' one expert on the region observed, ''but if she had decided to go to the city by herself, by taxi or private car, she could have disappeared without trace, without our even having been notified of her arrival!''
Even more serious, transcending the tourist problem alone, the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE) is sounding the alarm over the growing threat of kidnapping facing the approximately 250 French civilians now living in Afghanistan (just over 200 of them in Kabul.) Most of them work for humanitarian organizations. They are sometimes reluctant to take the security advice issued by the intelligence services. Not to say totally hostile to the idea of abandoning projects that they often set up with great difficulty. In recent weeks the French authorities have stepped up the pressure. And with good reason. The DGSE has gathered reliable information citing reconnaissance activity targeting isolated French humanitarian workers in the provinces. Their habits, their places of residence, and the vehicles used when they travel have apparently all been recorded. According to experts, these activities very much resemble the establishment of a ''target file,'' the preparatory ! phase prior to an actual kidnapping. The events of recent weeks, with the attacks on French and Spanish troops and the kidnapping of members of the ICRC and Italian military personnel have increased this anxiety.
The latest potential target is French military personnel throughout the country. Some 200 French soldiers take part, among other things, in direct instruction of the Afghan national army and are often posted, either individually or in pairs, to very isolated barracks. The DGSE, which has drafted several notes on the subject in recent months, therefore believes there is a very high risk of French nationals being taken hostage. The French intelligence service proposes a radical solution - to decide no longer do have one single French civilian in the provinces of southern Afghanistan and to demand that those present