Dominique Prieur, one of two French spies convicted for her part in sinking the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior has started a new life with the fire brigade.
The satirical French weekly Le Canard Enchaine said Prieur had been hired as the service's director of human resources, working for two days a week on a one-year contract, the New Zealand Herald reported.
The Herald said Prieur's job had been confirmed by the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP), and she would be working under her maiden name, Dominique Maire.
Her husband, Joel Prieur, was commander of the BSPP.
The BSPP has a staff of 8200 men and women and has military status.
Dominique Prieur and Major Alain Mafart, were part of the French team of saboteurs who used mines to sink the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland's Waitemata Harbour on July 10, 1985.
The sinking was intended to cripple the Greenpeace protest at French nuclear testing in the Pacific. The sinking killed Dutch-Portuguese photographer, Fernando Pereira, when he went below to get his cameras.
Mafart and Prieur were travelling on forged Swiss passports but were arrested two days after the attack before they left New Zealand.
The sinking caused an international furore and the trial of the two over the sinking and the death of the photographer attracted more high-level security than any other event in New Zealand history.
Armed police surrounded the High Court amid fears the French secret service might try to assassinate the two bombers.
They were both jailed for 10 years for manslaughter. However, French lobbying and threats of retaliation against New Zealand agricultural exports to Europe, led to a deal under which they were transferred to Hao Atoll, in French Polynesia, in exchange for reparations payments .
Mafart returned to France in December 1987, on medical grounds. Prieur followed in May the next year, having become pregnant after her husband joined her on the atoll.
