Just when you think things are getting hot in the Mideast, along come the French.

Only a year after they were set up, the French foreign intelligence service DGSE’s (Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure) new mission centres have their work cut out for them, according to the people at Intelligence Online.

The Middle East — which Hamas’s 7 October attack and Israel’s response to it has thrown into turmoil — and now Iran, which is pulling the strings, whether in Gaza with Hamas, in Lebanon with Hezbollah or in north-west Yemen with the Houthi rebels, have all become major concerns for the DGSE’s new platforms.