“Is there a Paris-Madrid axis of repression?” National and international cooperation and rivalry about French and Spanish political exiles (1959-1964)

This article focuses on police cooperation between France and Spain from 1959 to 1964. It shows how it was based on transactions and agreements between some Spanish and French services. The first one monitored the movements of political opponents exiles in France. The French services monitored the members of the FLN and then of the OAS, which had made Spain a rear base. These intersecting interests led to exchanges of information and requests for specific repressive measures (limitation of the political activity of opponents, expulsions) which took place between 1959 and 1962 and increased after 1962, while being disputed. If intelligence exchanges at the level of security organizations, especially central, become more regular and important, repressive measures are often circumvented or little applied, due to internal conflicts over them within the administrative and political world, in Spain as in France.