Blocking dissent: intelligence in the age of permanent political conflict
In the heart of Europe, where democracy was born as a vaccine against abuses of power, a disturbing spectre is now emerging: the systematic use of the security apparatus to strike at the patriotic opposition. Raising the alarm is not an activist, but the former president of the German domestic intelligence agency (BfV), Hans-Georg Maaßen. According to the jurist, former head of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, his former office was ‘politically armed‘ to target the conservative party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the first opposition party in the Bundestag.
In fact, the BfV recently classified the AfD as a ‘right-wing extremist organisation‘ on the basis of a more than 1,000-page report that has remained officially secret. The motivation? ‘Protection of sources’. But the investigation conducted by WELT reveals a sensational detail: almost all the information in the dossier is public – speeches, social posts, official documents – and there is no trace of real covert operations, nor of interceptions or undercover activities worthy of a terrorist threatAfD__ The reasons for ….
Hans-Georg Maaßen, interviewed by The European Conservative, called the BfV’s decision ‘a political vendetta’ engineered by the then Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who allegedly bent intelligence to the line of the SPD, the ruling party. “In no other Western democracy is a political party under surveillance by the intelligence services. This undermines public trust and turns the state into an electoral actor’.
If Germany is the laboratory, France offers the operational model. Here, the DGSI (Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure) has intensified its surveillance of Telegram groups linked to the sovereignist and identity area, considered incubators of dissent and ‘ideological radicalism’. In particular, after the anti-immigration protests in Lyon and Toulouse, the focus shifted to encrypted messaging. According to Le Figaro, the head of the DGSI explicitly spoke of a ‘resurrection of the violent ultra-right’, citing Telegram as his organisation’s strategic vector:
“The threat of the ultra-right has grown with new technologies and communication channels beyond ordinary control”
(Le Figaro, 9 July 2023)
But it is precisely the vagueness of the label ‘ultra-right’, applied without a clear legal definition, that allows for pre-emptive operations and discretionary monitoring, as also documented in the case of the policy change imposed on Telegram by the French judiciary.
Finally, in Romania, the presidential elections of May 2025 took place in a highly polarised climate. After theannulment of the November 2024vote for alleged foreign interference, and the exclusion of the sovereignist candidate Călin Georgescu, the scene was dominated by the patriotic leader George Simion, who won the first round with 41% of the vote.
Euronews reported that the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, publicly accused France of having pressured the platform in Romania during the election campaign, fearing indirect interference in the vote. The French government has categorically denied this, but the news has opened a heated debate on digital freedom and the neutrality of communication infrastructures.
In all three cases – Berlin, Paris, Bucharest – what appears is a selective use of securitarian power to neutralise political subjects that, although legally constituted and representative, are considered ‘enemies’ rather than adversaries. A dangerous logic, which redraws the contours of legitimacy in western society.
Deviant Services or Deep State? The new normality of ‘lawfare
Whereas the political struggle once took place in the streets, in parliaments and in the press, today it is increasingly decided in ministerial cabinets, administrative courts and intelligence offices. The Anglo-Saxon concept of lawfare – the strategic use of law and institutions to delegitimise, obstruct or eliminate an adversary – has found a powerful and dangerously opaque tool in the management of the security services.
The German case: law as pretext, surveillance as sanction
In Germany, the BfV did not limit itself to an ideological analysis of the AfD. As pointed out in the leaked reports analysed by Cicero and WELT, the agency built the classification of ‘certain extremism’ almost exclusively on public material: social posts, press statements, links to pro-conservative media such as Compact and to German ‘Neue Rechte’ realities such as Ein Prozent or Archetyp GmbHAfD__The reasons for …. What is striking is the almost total absence of evidence gathered through classic intelligence operations: no wiretaps, no known informants, no conspiracy.
Yet, this architecture of citations was deemed sufficient to justify extensive surveillance, the use of undercover informants and – potentially – the exclusion of the AfD from public office or electoral competitions. This is law bent to political ends, where it is not objective dangerousness that counts, but the construction of a legal narrative.
As Maaßen noted:
“Today the term ‘extremism’ has been stretched to include normal political parties. But who decides what is ‘normal’? The minister? The agency? This is no longer a neutral state”
Moral intelligence: the French case and the control of consensus
In France, the trend is similar, but more subtle. Here, intelligence does not target registered parties, but builds an ecosystem of pressure on pre-political groups: chats, alternative media, Telegram channels, unstructured youth groups. The case is emblematic: the DGSI has elevated the non-parliamentary ultra-right to a ‘systemic threat’, putting digital platforms in the crosshairs of preventive counter-radicalism. In parallel, the judiciary asked Telegram – a platform chosen by many conservative activists – to change its terms of use and cooperate with the judiciary, undermining its original promise of neutrality.
Romania and the return of systemic suspicion
In Romania, the dynamic is different but equally revealing. The first round of the presidential elections saw the clear affirmation of George Simion, leader of the AUR party, in a context marked by deep distrust in the institutional apparatus. Only five months earlier, the elections had been cancelled following an alleged Russian intelligence intervention in favour of Călin Georgescu – an unprecedented event in recent European history.
No direct evidence emerged of interference by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) in the current election process. However, thepublic accusation by Telegram founderPavel Durov that France exerted pressure to restrict access to the app in Romania during the vote raised questions about indirect control of digital infrastructure at the most sensitive moment of the democratic confrontation. The French government has denied any involvement, but the episode has reignited the debate on the vulnerability of democracies to transnational interference disguised as ‘technical cooperation’.
The changing face of repression: when the state disguises itself as an arbiter
The most disturbing feature of the phenomenon we have described – from Germany to France to Romania – is not so much theemergency use of the state against the opposition, but its systemic transformation into an unelected political arbiter. In European democracies, popular legitimacy should be the sole foundation of power. Yet, increasingly often, patriotic consensus is defused before the ballot box, through procedures, labels and surveillance devices justified in the name of ‘defending the established order’.
In this context, state neutrality becomes a fiction. Secret services, the administrative judiciary, privacy authorities, digital networks: all these structures present themselves as technical, impartial, protective. But in reality they operate selectively, building an invisible but effective barrier against any political alternative that challenges the globalist status quo.
The AfD in Germany is defined as ‘extremist’ on the basis of public statements and newspaper articles – not for subversive acts. The Telegram channels of French sovereignists are monitored not because they plan attacks, but because they express politically undesirable thinking. In Romania, the very infrastructure of voting comes into the crosshairs of alleged technical interference between EU member states, as in the case of French pressure on Telegram during the presidential elections. It is a strategy of preventive interdiction: not hitting the offence, but preventing dissent.
A new form of post-democratic governance?
All this suggests a deeper dynamic: the advance of a European model in which political viability is no longer guaranteed by universal suffrage, but by ideological compatibility with the ‘democratic order’ as those in control define it. In other words: you can only participate in democracy if you do not question the perimeter drawn by those who are already in it.
It is the paradox of contemporary Europe: the very institutions that set themselves up as the guardians of freedom and the rule of law reserve the right to determine who is worthy of it. A system of selective legitimisation, where citizens can vote, but only for previously filtered candidates.
And precisely because of this, patriotic and conservative movements today face a more subtle but more radical challenge: not just winning votes, but defending the very right to compete. Not just winning elections, but defending the idea that every citizen has the right to a real alternative. Because when the opposition is silenced without trial, when security becomes censorship and bureaucracy replaces popular judgement, freedom is no longer in danger: it is already under judicial administration.
The hour of responsibility: beyond surveillance, construction
We are no longer in the time of theories, but of facts. A silent mutation of democracy is taking place in Europe: not through coups d’état, but through circulars, classifications, regulations, security protocols. It is an era in which dissent is not banned, but ‘delegitimised’. In which ideas are not fought in debate, but extinguished in the shadows of surveillance. And in which the truth of power is hidden behind the technocracy of legality.
But if this is the picture, then a choice must be made. We cannot simply denounce. We need to build cultural, legal, technological and strategic instruments that allow identity, conservative and sovereignist forces to inhabit the future without subordination.
What does this mean in concrete terms?
- It means defending the autonomy of communication platforms such as Telegram or other digital environments, so that they remain free spaces for civic participation and not enclaves to be militarised on moral pretexts.
- It means proposing a European reform of intelligence and special powers, ending the structural complicity between surveillance and political power.
- It means, finally, reconstructing the very concept of security, stripping it of its ideological drifts and returning it to its original meaning: to protect citizens, not to condition elections.
The battle ahead will not only be played out at the ballot box, but in the ability to rewrite the very perimeter of democratic citizenship. It is not just a matter of winning consensus, but of defending the viability of the alternative. Because today, in too many corners of Europe, whoever dissents is not an adversary, but a guard. And what is at stake is not an extra seat, but the very survival of political freedom.
The time for innocence is over. But the time for courage has just begun.