French Expel Four Soviet Diplomats

PARIS -- The French government said yesterday it expelled four Soviet diplomats, and official sources identified them as members of Moscow's military intelligence organization, the GRU.

The sources said the weekend's expulsions were linked to the arrest late last month of a retired French air force non-commissioned officer on charges of spying for the Soviet Union.

The Foreign Ministry said the four diplomats "were asked to leave French territory following recent French judicial investigations," but it provided no further details.

The ministry would not identify the four diplomats, but news reports said they were military and commercial attaches at the Soviet Embassy.

A spokesman for the Soviet Embassy in Paris said the French action was "devoid of proof" and of a "manifestly inimical and provocative" character.

"Such actions from the French side do not correspond with its declarations about its will to maintain and develop good relations with the USSR, and the responsibility for the consequences of this action are incumbent on the French side," the Soviet spokesman said.

It was the largest single expulsion of Soviets from France since 1983, when 47 Soviet diplomats and officials were asked to leave.

Foreign Ministry spokesmen refused to link the latest expulsions specifically with the arrest of Bernard Sourisseau, who is alleged to have made regular trips to the Atlantic ports of Lorient and Brest to observe French naval movements. But wellplaced sources indicated the cases were linked.

Sourisseau was arrested by the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance, the French counterespionage agency, and jailed in the city of Rennes.

Authorities said the 44-year-old former helicopter mechanic also reported on movements at the naval base at Ile Longue, near Brest, home of France's nuclear missile carrying submarines.

Soviet interest in the Brest-Lorient region in northwestern France was cited in November 1983 by Brest Mayor Jacques Berthelot. He suspended a friendship agreement with the city of Tallinn in Estonia, saying Brest was becoming a key point for Soviet spying.