BBS Faculty Member

Since May 2022, Mr. François Fischer is the (elected) Director of the Permanent Secretariat of the Intelligence College in Europe (ICE), launched in 2019.

Beginning his career as a Balkan analyst in the French external service, Mr. Fischer evolved through his 30 years career (including 13 years posted outside France) on a broad portfolio and at a more strategic level, reaching various management positions:

• Head of the European(/CIS included) department,
• From 2012 to 2015, European and Multilateral senior advisor, liaising with EU and NATO,
• From 2015-2021, Head of Analysis and, then, Deputy Director of the EU (Civilian) Intelligence Analysis Centre (EU INTCEN).

In this multilateral format, he has cooperated closely with his military counterparts within the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC). He created the EU Counter Hybrid Fusion Cell (EU HFC) and was one of the main actors building some EU-Nato interactions in this domain. In 2020, he co-drafted the first ever EU Threat analysis launching the Strategic Compass process.

French high civil servant (Administrateur hors classe), he holds a Master in Political Science from Sciences-Po Paris, a Bachelor in History from Sorbonne and has passed the High Civil Servant Special training in École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) in Strasbourg.

Mr. Fischer is a true believer in the need for a common “grammar” between all the European intelligence services. He is fully committed to intensify exchanges on this topic, be it between intelligence services but also between intelligence studies’ researchers, and to increasing the outreach of the ICE.