Editor-in-chief who turned out to be a KGB agent: Who is Philippe Grumbach?

French magazine L'Express has revealed that its prominent former Editor-in-Chief Philippe Grumbach spied on the Soviet Union for 35 years.

When he died in 2003, French Minister of Culture Jean-Jacques Aillagon said Grumbach was "one of the most memorable and respected figures in the French media."

However, the famous name also spied on the Soviet Union's intelligence service, the KGB, until 1981.

Etienne Girard, one of the editors of L'Express, stated that during the research he compiled on former editors-in-chief, Grumbach's close circle confirmed the espionage claim.

Philippe Grumbach (1924–2003) was a French journalist and writer, who also engaged in film producing. He worked at L'Express magazine for twenty-four years, becoming in the 1970s its editor-in-chief. After his death, in 2024, he was revealed as having being a Soviet spy throughout his career.

Girard said about Grumbach, "He was one of the greatest Soviet spies in the Fifth Republic without anyone noticing," and emphasized that Grumbach did not make propaganda in the magazine.

He was careful to keep his work as a spy separate from his work as the magazine's editor-in-chief. The KGB wanted him to continue posing as a centrist bourgeois so as not to give away his identity.

EDITORSHIP AND SPY LIFE

In 1954, Grumbach was hired to work at L'Express by founder Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber.

From then on, Grumbach began to rub shoulders with some of France's most important figures of the 20th century.

He helped repair the reputation of then-senator and future president Francois Mitterrand, who was accused of staging a fake assassination in 1960.

Actors such as Alain Delon and Isabelle Adjani attended Grumbach's wedding in 1980, and writers Francoise Sagan and Pierre Berge, the co-founders of the Yves Saint Laurent brand, witnessed it.

Grumbach was a spy from the very beginning, throughout the process of building his entire social circle.

WHAT IS BEHIND THE SPYING DECISION?

Some see his decision to spy for the Soviet Union as a romantic tale of loyalty to a doomed regime.

It was probably the ideological approach that initially attracted Grumbach to the KGB.

However, it is thought that the reason he remained a spy was less a desire to advance the cause of communism in Europe than a desire to earn enough money to buy a flat in Paris.

L'Express stated that there were documents showing that Grumbach was given the mission by the KGB to "solve sensitive problems" and "liaise with representatives and leaders of political parties and groups".

Grumbach's career

Philippe Grumbach was editorial secretary of the Agence Française de Presse from 1946 to 1948. After working for a while at Liberation and then Paris-Presse-l'Intransigeant, he joined L'Express as an editor in 1954.

He founded Pariscope in 1965 and then managed Crapouillot. He then returned to L'Express and in 1971 took on the duties of political director, then editor-in-chief, and editor-in-chief.

Philippe Grumbach, a communist in his youth, died in 2003 at the age of 79.