France's Senate said Tuesday it had suspended a senior French civil servant arrested on suspicion of spying for North Korea. Benoit Quennedey, a senior administrator in France's upper house of parliament and president of the Franco-Korean Friendship Association, was taken into custody late Sunday.
Investigators suspect him of the "collection and delivery of information to a foreign power likely to undermine the fundamental interests of the nation", a judicial source told AFP.
He is being held at the headquarters of France's DGSI domestic intelligence agency on the outskirts of Paris. In a statement the Senate said he had been provisionally suspended from his job as chief administrator in the department of architecture, heritage and gardens and that his Senate office had been searched by police. "It's now time to let justice take its course without interference," Senate President Gerard Larcher said.
The French news and talk show Le Quotidien, which broke the story, said Quennedey, who has written extensively on North Korea, often in admiring tones, was arrested at his home. It was not clear what type of information he was suspected of trying to pass to Pyongyang.
The Senate said the alleged spying, if proven, would be "extremely serious and would deal a blow to the image of our institution", adding that it had joined the criminal case as a civil plaintiff. It is the second time this year that reports of suspected spying have emerged in France.
In May, officials revealed that two former agents at France's DGSE foreign intelligence agency had been arrested last December on suspicion of passing information to China. Quennedey has travelled extensively throughout the Korean peninsula, according to the website of his publisher Delga. In a video posted on YouTube that month, he described impoverished, isolated North Korea as a "model for development", praising citizens' free access to education and health care.