Interview by Nathalie Laceur (ECF, NLS) with Gérard Thomas in Paris.
Gérard Thomas is a private detective, founder of a private detective
agency in Nice and Paris, and former secretary-general of the National Council of Private Investigators.

Gérard Thomas: Do you know what the oldest profession in the world is? Everyone thinks that it's prostitution, of course. But it's information gathering. I'm not totally sure, but it could be true. You know, I didn't start last week, I started fifty-five years ago. My thinking has evolved. After fifty years, the imagination, the nerve, the courage, the cowardice of the human brain doesn't astonish me anymore.

Nathalie Laceur: Of the unconscious!

GT: Yes, it was invented by one of your colleagues, Sigmund Freud, who was Jewish … Well, maybe I'll start there.

One day I met a man in a suit and tie, fifty years old: "I've heard about you. You're a detective, you can follow people discreetly. Can I ask you to follow my wife?" As he seemed very intelligent, I asked him after half an hour: "What do you do for a living, sir? Because you seem to be very cultured." – "I'm a rabbi." – "What do you mean you're a rabbi?" – "Well yes, I'm a rabbi." – "But I thought rabbis…" – "Oh, Mr Thomas, you're a real goy! Where I come from, not only do we have the right to get married, we have the obligation to get married."
I followed his wife for a week. She wasn't doing anything suspicious. And that's when I thought that even when you're religious, with rules, ethics and morality, you can be jealous, quite simply. At the time, I thought it was funny. It was as if a priest asked me to follow his little pupil to the wooden cross. That's an amusing anecdote to start with.

NL: How did you become a detective?

GT: I was a medical student. I wanted to study bodies; I wanted to help people. But when you're a student, you don't have any money, you're broke. During the summers I had to work for four months. As I loved motorcycling, I answered an advert in Moto Revue: "Looking for a biker." I went there, thinking it was to be a courier. Then I came across the biggest detective agency in Paris, run by Mr Michel Forget. He said to me: "Mr Thomas, you're going to be a detective. You're going to follow people on your motorbike." And it wasn't long before I realised that 90% of my tailings had to do with… love life!

NL: So, you left medical school to become a detective?

GT: I stopped studying because I wasn't very hard-working. Instead of treating bodies, I turned to the brain… I was amazed by people's imagination. What's more, seeing lovers happy when they saw each other touched me. Well, it's up to you to explain to me why I didn't just think of them as liars and manipulators.

NL: Can you tell me a bit more about these tailings of love life?

GT: They ended with the finding that it was adultery. Fifty-five years ago, adultery was a criminal offence. You could go to prison, my dear! You and I, if we cheated on our wives or husbands, we would go to prison. So, it was important for the lawyers to hire detectives to bring in the evidence. Because, behind the feelings and the love affair, there could be a financial interest, assets, custody of the children. In short, when I started out, the detective – at least me, I am not speaking about my colleagues – was almost exclusively involved in confirming adultery. Do you know how an official report is made? There's a police commissioner, a bailiff, a locksmith and two or three detectives. Why two or three detectives? Because the gentleman or the lady could jump out of the window on the other side and escape.

NL: In the meantime, times have changed and so have the laws.

GT: Yes, five years later, in France at least, the laws changed and adultery was no longer considered a criminal offence. The [detective] profession, relying on the technique of shadowing, then turned its attention to theft, insurance, fraud and unfair competition. But I didn't say that there was no longer any work to do with affairs of the heart. It's still going strong, but compared to the large turnover in this firm, it is 50% sentimental cases: cases of jealousy and following someone. We still do regular "pre-wedding" surveys.

NL: What exactly is that?

GT: You meet someone, and before you make her your future wife and the mother of your children, you want to know her morality. It often depends on how you met. Instead of meeting randomly and spontaneously, people are increasingly meeting on social networks and swingers' websites. Sometimes they still want to check. They come to me and say: "We met on dating websites. I'd like to know whether or not he's still meeting women, because I've seen that he's left his thing open on the internet." We are doing a lot of "pre-wedding" surveys in the last twenty years.

Three months ago, a lady called us and said: "Can you do a survey on a gentleman? He's been trying to seduce me over the internet for six months. I've fallen in love with him. He calls me, saying he's in prison and needs money to get out and pay his lawyers." It's not the feelings that have changed. The love is still the same. Technologically, there have been a lot of changes. And con artists and swindlers are very good at using this technological progress as a weapon.

One day, a gentleman called us, an American, let's call him Mr Smith. He said to me: "Mr Thomas, I'm going to marry a French girl." I said, "Congratulations, Mr Smith. What's the problem?" – Well, the problem is that she's an escort. She says she wants to marry me and she has promised to give up her job and not have any more affairs or clients – "Well, I want you to pretend to be a client." In the detective business, we call that a "mystery client." And bingo! She replied to my message: "Meet me on the Champs-Élysées, coffee, etc." She was charming and kind. That evening, I contacted her again and asked to get to know her a little better. "I'm at the Palace, avenue Montaigne. If you like, we can spend the night there together." She said, "Yes, why not?" I replied, "I'll get back to you, I'll have to see if I've got any work on." I called my client: "Look, she came to the appointment. I think it's already costing you a lot," – because it's the client who pays for everything, "And then, this evening, I suggested that she spend the night at the Palace. Shall we go there?" The customer said: "I believe you, Mr Thomas, I think she hasn't stopped." So we didn't carry on. A few days later, I was walking around Paris and came across Mr Smith, with his wife and their two children…! Yes, sometimes our clients don't tell us everything either.

NL: Clients come to you to ask you to find something out. Do you ever discover things that your clients weren't expecting?

GT: A gentleman asks me to follow his wife for a week. He wants to know if she's meeting men. I follow her for a week. During that time, she didn't see a man. On the other hand, she meets a girlfriend every day. They went shopping, they went to the Champs-Élysées, Avenue Montaigne, etc. For a week, she couldn't stop talking to her girlfriend. For a week, she never stopped going out with her girlfriends. I thought I was wasting my time. I take the photos anyway, because that's my job, and at the end of the week I show them to the client. I say,
"Listen, I'm going to reassure you. When you went abroad, during that whole week, your wife didn't see any men. All she's met are her girlfriends, they're having the time of their lives, hand in hand, they're going shopping and so on." And the man turns red. "I should have told you, Mr Thomas… when I met my wife, she was bi." That's the kind of surprise I had.
Another example from twenty years ago: a woman in her fifties. "I think my husband has a mistress. Can you follow him on such and such a day?" Bingo! That afternoon, he went to a provincial town fifty kilometres from Paris, stopped at a hotel and went in. Two hours later, he went out with a charming young girl, twenty or twenty-five years younger than him. They get into their respective cars, follow each other; I take photos, I get the plates. Ten kilometres later, they stop at the side of the road and get out for a last kiss. I take a few more photos. Three days later, I called the client to give her the report and the photos. And then she starts crying. "Do you know who this lady is that my husband is meeting? I know her. She's my daughter-in-law, my son's wife!" So, a double disaster… I don't know what happened next. It's a huge frustration for detectives. People come to us because they need us, because they want evidence. Of course, they have the right not to follow up, to stop calling us with news. It must be a bit like when you have patients, you treat them and then they disappear.

NL: At a time when everyone openly says what they are, shows who they are, when everything is supposedly transparent, you bear witness to the fact that there are still secrets.

GT: People still lie, they still have their secret garden. That hasn't changed for a thousand years, for ten thousand years, except that now, effectively, everything takes place on the mobile. Your life, your career, your ideas, your loves, everything is on your mobile. This is linked to technological progress. But the man himself, or the woman herself, has not changed.
I would add a dramatic connotation, namely that what hasn't changed either is that jealousy can lead to tragedy. And unfortunately, we have witnessed five dramas of passion. All of them ended in the saddest possible way, by the elimination not only of the rival, but also of the wife or husband. In detective circles, this is called the "target." Physical elimination. So you see… Othello, etc., jealousy can go to extremes.

NL: Do you ever refuse requests?

GT: Of course, yes. And not just for sentimental reasons. One day, a gentleman asked us to follow his wife. He was in prison for several years, and he wanted to know if she had a lover, if she was having affairs. I asked him: "Can you tell me why you're in prison?" – "Yes, I hit my wife." You don't have to accept such dangerous cases.
Unfortunately, in the past, I've taken on cases that I didn't know were dangerous, and that began with the banal. "Mr Thomas, can you find my wife? She's been missing for four days. Can you find her for me?" A week later, I called him: "I've got good news and bad news. I've found your wife, but I found her at a gentleman's house." – "A lover?" – "I don't know, but they live together." – "Can I have the address?" Like the idiot I was forty years ago, I gave him the address. I was young, I was enthusiastic, I wanted to please the customer. I gave him the result of my work. What a stupid thing to do! I gave the address of the couple, his wife and her boyfriend. Forty-eight hours later, at six o'clock in the morning, there's a ring at my door. Who comes to wake you up at six in the morning? The criminal investigation department, 36, quai des Orfèvres, the big murder police station! Two policemen: "Do you know mister so-and-so?"– "Yes, he's my client." – "What did your client ask of you?" – "To find his wife." – "Mr Thomas, do you know what your client did when he left you? He bought a shotgun and killed his wife and her lover. He said it was thanks to you." So, I was brought in for questioning, to testify. Now I'm thinking a bit, but at the time I was ambitious. That was forty years ago. Since then, the law has changed in France. I don't know if it's because of or due to this story. Now, when we're asked to find people, their addresses, we're obliged to ask permission from the person concerned, the target. If they say yes, we give the address to our client. If the person concerned, the target, says no, we don't give the address. My unfortunate experience may have led to a change in French law. Feelings can go to extremes, even to the point of death.

NL: Do you ever suggest to clients that they see a psychoanalyst or psychiatrist rather than responding to their request for an investigation?

GT: Nowadays, I often hear people saying that they are very open-minded and understanding. More and more couples accept swinging, and yet… One day, a gentleman came to see me and said: "Can you follow my wife around for a fortnight? I need to know what she's up to." After an hour's conversation… – incidentally, why do I want to spend time talking to my clients? It's a bit to get a feel for their personality. We're not shrinks, but when we talk, we have to see if people are more or less normal, if they have well-defined attitudes, at least from the point of view of morality, or, on the contrary, if they're going off in all directions. So, after an hour, I ask this gentleman, who is asking me to follow his wife, what he does for a living. "I'm the manager of a swingers' club." I look at him, astonished: "Hang on, I don't understand, so you're used to…?" – "Yes, yes, my wife and I are swingers too. But still, I want to know what she's doing." So, on the outside, you might think he's open-minded, but he still needs some proof of the truth. Only a shrink, a psychoanalyst, can explain why.
This week, a woman wanted to have her man followed. They're together, they enjoy being together, but they live separately, and they have separate affairs, as they've agreed. While she is away for a few days, she wants to know what her boyfriend is doing. But why is she asking us to check when they've given each other their freedom? Can you explain? I can't explain it to myself.