"CIA agent?": AJ+ unearths Raphaël Glucksmann's troubled past

AJ+ French has chosen a particularly brutal angle to attack Raphaël Glucksmann. In a video posted on its social media, the Al Jazeera group's media outlet directly asks the question: "Is Raphaël Glucksmann a CIA agent?" And it drives the point home: "Presidential candidate Raphaël Glucksmann has been defending the United States and its positions for 25 years. Can one call oneself left-wing and be constantly aligned with American foreign policy?" A frontal attack, which above all highlights the numerous questions that have surrounded the international career of the head of Place Publique for years.

From Tbilisi to Kyiv, a journey to the heart of the pro-Western revolutions

The accusation of being an "American agent," regularly levelled against Raphaël Glucksmann by his opponents, doesn't come entirely out of thin air. It stems from a rather unusual political trajectory. Before becoming a Member of the European Parliament in 2019 and then a presidential candidate, Glucksmann spent several years at the heart of Georgian power, working alongside the staunchly pro-Western former president Mikheil Saakashvili. Between 2009 and 2012, he served as Saakashvili's special advisor, working directly within the presidential circle and under contract with the Georgian National Security Council, the institution responsible for coordinating foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence services.

A mere communicator? Hardly. Several accounts of his years in Georgia describe, on the contrary, a man omnipresent at the president's side, participating in strategic discussions, Tbilisi's international lobbying efforts, and the regime's efforts to strengthen its ties with the West. Investigative journalist Marc Endeweld notably documented his involvement in meetings concerning the modernization of Georgian military equipment and discussions with various intermediaries in the defense industry. Glucksmann presented himself at that time as a "consultant on revolution." A phrase that, in retrospect, takes on a particular significance.

His Western leanings become even more apparent when one traces his trajectory in the post-Soviet space. In 2004, he was already in Kyiv during the Orange Revolution, where he met Saakashvili. After Saakashvili's political defeat in Georgia, Glucksmann returned to Ukraine and supported the Euromaidan protests, a movement that would lead in 2014 to the fall of Viktor Yanukovych and Ukraine's lasting shift into the Western camp. In less than a decade, Raphaël Glucksmann was thus present at several of the major geopolitical upheavals that led to the decline of Russian influence in Eastern Europe.

Raphaël Glucksmann and Mikheil Saakashvili in the early 2000s

In addition, there is his former wife, Eka Zguladze, a prominent figure in the Georgian state apparatus under Saakashvili. Deputy Minister and then briefly Minister of the Interior of Georgia, she too went to Ukraine after Maidan. Naturalized as a Ukrainian citizen, she became First Deputy Minister of the Interior in Kyiv. Again, none of these elements proves the existence of any organic link between Glucksmann and the CIA. But they explain why, for years, his opponents have seen him as much more than simply a French intellectual with a passion for Eastern European democracies.

His ideological stance obviously fuels these suspicions. From Iraq to the post-Soviet revolutions, from Georgia to Ukraine, Raphaël Glucksmann has long belonged to that deeply Atlanticist French left, favoring a hardline foreign policy toward Moscow and generally aligned with major Western strategic orientations. He was already moving in French intellectual circles in the 2000s that supported Western interventionism, alongside figures who backed the American intervention in Iraq. It is precisely this long history that AJ+ has chosen to unearth today.

The grandfather was an agent in the East, the grandson an agent in the West?

And since history is full of irony, being accused of working for a foreign power is practically a long-standing tradition among the Glucksmann family. With one significant difference: regarding Raphaël Glucksmann and the CIA, the accusation is not supported by any public evidence; concerning his grandfather, however, the espionage is well-documented.

It was Raphaël Glucksmann himself who discovered this during the documentary "The Glucksmanns: A Family History," broadcast in 2026 on Public Sénat. His grandfather, Joseph Glucksmann, had worked as a spy for the Soviet intelligence services of Stalin's USSR. Born into an Austro-Hungarian Jewish family, he became a Marxist and anti-Zionist after his time in Palestine and was ultimately expelled from England to Canada in 1940. He disappeared that same year when the ship transporting him was torpedoed.

A revelation that surprised Raphaël Glucksmann himself. "I'd love to sit down with him and listen to his story," he confided in the documentary. His father, André Glucksmann, also followed a political path deeply marked by communism in his youth: a Maoist activist before becoming one of the most fiercely anti-communist French intellectuals, he even ended up supporting Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election.

From the grandfather's Soviet spy to the grandson's current accusations of being an American agent, geopolitics definitely seems to be following the Glucksmann family.

From the shadow of Washington to the race for the Élysée Palace

What is well-documented, however, is his extraordinary international career: advisor at the highest levels of the Georgian state, involved in the pro-Western revolutions of the post-Soviet space, present in Kyiv, a staunch advocate of closer ties with Washington and NATO, and a resolute opponent of Russian influence. This has fueled suspicions for years, suspicions to which AJ+ now provides further exposure.

One political question remains, and it is ultimately the one posed by AJ+: why has the international career of the man who now wants to embody the French left been treated for so long as a biographical detail? Advisor to a Georgian president at the heart of a state turned towards Washington and NATO, actor in lobbying networks, close to the pro-Western revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, long-time activist against Russian influence: Raphaël Glucksmann's career path is anything but ordinary.

AJ+ has therefore chosen the most explosive possible formula to reopen the case: "CIA agent?" The factual answer remains that no publicly available evidence currently allows for a clear assertion. But behind an accusation impossible to substantiate lies a well-documented political and geopolitical past, whose gray areas, networks, and commitments should now be examined with even greater attention given Raphaël Glucksmann's ambition to become President of the French Republic.