University professor Xavier Crettiez admits that he doesn’t know the real names of many of the students on his course.

This is a highly unusual state of affairs in the world of academia, but Prof Crettiez’s work is far from standard.

Instead, he helps train France’s spies.

“I rarely know the intelligence agents’ backgrounds when they are sent on the course, and I doubt the names I’m given are genuine anyway,” he says.

If you wanted to create a setting for a spy school, then the campus of Sciences Po Saint-Germain on the outskirts of Paris seems a good fit.

With dour, even gloomy-looking, early 20th Century buildings surrounded by busy, drab roads and large, intimidating metal gates, it has a very discreet feel.

Where it does stand out is its unique diploma that brings together more typical students in their early 20s, and active members of the French secret services, usually between the ages of 35 and 50.

The course is called Diplôme sur le Renseignement et les Menaces Globales, which translates as Diploma of Intelligence and Global Threats.

It was developed by the university in association with the Academie du Renseignement, the training arm of the French secret services.

This came following a request from French authorities a decade ago. After the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the government went on a large recruitment drive within the French intelligence agencies.

It asked Sciences Po, one of France’s leading universities, to come up with a new course to both train potential new spies, and provide continuous training for current agents.

Large French companies were also quick to show an interest, both in getting their security staff onto the course, and snapping up many of the younger graduates.

The diploma is made up of 120 hours of classwork with modules spread over four months. For external students – the spies and those on placement from businesses – it costs around €5,000 ($5,900; £4,400).

The core aim of the course is to identify threats wherever they are, and how to track and overcome them. The key topics include the economics of organized crime, Islamic jihadism, business intelligence gathering and political violence.

To attend one of the classes and speak to the students I had to be vetted first by the French security services. The theme of the lesson I joined was “intelligence and over-reliance on technology”.

One of the students I speak to is a man in his 40s who goes by the name Roger. He tells me in very precise, clipped English that he is investment banker. He adds: “I provide consultancy across west Africa, and I joined the course to provide risk assessments to my clients there.”

Prof Crettiez, who teaches political radicalisation, says there has been a huge expansion in the French secret services in recent years. And that there are now around 20,000 agents in what he called the “inner circle”.

This is made up of the DGSE, which looks at matters overseas, and is the French equivalent of the UK’s MI6 or the US’s CIA. And the DGSI, which focuses on threats within France, like the UK’s MI5 or the US’s FBI.

But he says it’s not just about terrorism. “There are the two main security agencies, but also Tracfin an intelligence agency which specializes in money laundering.

“It is preoccupied with the surge in mafia activity, especially in southern France, including corruption in the public and private sectors mainly due to massive profits in illegal drug trafficking.”

Other lecturers on the course include a DGSE official once located in Moscow, a former French ambassador to Libya, and a senior official from Tracfin. The head of security at the French energy giant EDF also runs one module.

The private sector’s interest in the diploma is said to be continuing to grow. Big businesses, especially in the defence and aerospace sector, but also French luxury goods firms, are increasingly keen to hire the students as they face relentless cybersecurity and spying threats as well as sabotage.

Recently graduates have been snapped up by the French mobile phone operator Orange, aerospace and defence giant Thales, and LVHM, which owns everything from Louis Vuitton and Dior to champagne brands Dom Perignon and Krug.

Twenty eight students are enrolled in this year’s class. Six are spies. You can tell who they are, as they are the ones huddled together during class breaks, away from the young students, and not too overwhelmed with joy when I approach them.

Without saying their exact roles, and with arms crossed, one says the course is considered a fast-track stepping stone for a promotion from the office to field work. Another says he gets fresh ideas being in this academic environment. They signed the day’s attendance form with just their first names.

One of the younger students, Alexandre Hubert, 21, says he wanted a deeper understanding of the looming economic war between Europe and China. “Looking at intelligence gathering from a James Bond viewpoint is not relevant, the job is analysing risk and working out how to counteract it,” he tells me.

Another class member, Valentine Guillot, also 21, says she was inspired by the popular, fictional French TV spy drama Le Bureau. “Coming here to discover this world which I didn’t know anything about except for the TV series has been a remarkable opportunity, and now I am very keen to join the security services.”

Nearly half of the students in the class are in fact women. And this is a relatively recent development according to one of the lecturers, Sebastien-Yves Laurent, a specialist on technology in spying.

“Women’s interest in intelligence gathering is new,” he says. “They are interested because they think it will provide for a better world.

“And if there is one common thread amongst all these young students it’s that they are very patriotic and that is new compared to 20 years ago.

If you are keen to apply to get on the course, French citizenship is an essential requirement, although some dual citizens are accepted.

Yet Prof Crettiez says he has to be wary. “I regularly get applications from very attractive Israeli and Russian women with amazing CVs. Unsurprisingly they are binned immediately.”

In a recent group photo of the class you can immediately tell who the spies are – they had their backs to the camera.

While all the students and professional spies I met are trim and athletic, Prof Crettiez is also keen to dispel the myth of James Bond-like adventure.

“Few new recruits will end up in the field,” he says. “Most French intelligence agencies jobs are desk bound.”

The US says its military operation to capture Venezuela’s president took months of planning, but when Donald Trump gave the order to launch, “Operation Absolute Resolve” only lasted about 150 minutes.

The surprise early-morning attack on Saturday marked an unprecedented event in modern politics and culminated in the arrest of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Captured by troops from an elite US army unit as they tried to flee into a fortified safe room, the pair are now being held in a detention centre in New York and face narco-terrorism charges.

As the sun rose on Saturday, the scale of the military operation in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, was clear.

Pictures from Fuerte Tiuna, a huge military complex where top government officials live, show bombed out buildings and charred, smouldering cars.

It was at this compound that Maduro and his wife were captured, Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told the Associated Press news agency.

Operation Absolute Resolve began with reports of explosions at about 02:00 in Caracas (06:00 GMT).

The US cut power to the city, Trump has since said, describing it as “dark and deadly”.

The aim was to disable Venezuela’s air defences and clear the path for US military helicopters to get to Fuerte Tiuna.

“We assessed that we had maintained totally the element of surprise”, Gen Dan Caine, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, said.

The BBC has verified five strike locations, including the compound, a port and an airport. Pictures show Fuerte Tiuna on fire, with huge flames visible for miles.

Venezuelans have described how US military helicopters flew low over Caracas, heading for Fuerte Tiuna.

Some of the helicopters came under fire, but were still able to fly, Gen Caine said.

“It was a lot of gunfire,” Trump added.

Once on the ground, troops from the US Army’s Delta Force, an elite special forces unit, moved quickly.

They gained access to the compound at 02:01 local time, and the Maduros “gave up” without a struggle, Gen Caine said.

But Trump gave more details. The Maduros tried to escape into a safe place, the US president explained, describing it as a military “fortress”.

“The safe place is all steel, and he wasn’t able to make it to the door because our guys were so fast.

“It was a very thick door, a very heavy door,” Trump told reporters. “He made it to the door. He was unable to close it.”

But even if they had managed to get into the safe room, Trump said troops could have blown it open in about “47 seconds”.

Now in US custody, Nicolás Maduro and his wife were transported some 2,100 miles (3,400km), to New York City.

They were flown out of Caracas by helicopter, and taken to the USS Iwo Jima, a warship stationed in the Caribbean. The team was back “over the water” by 04:29, Gen Caine said.

It was on the ship that we got one of the defining pictures of the whole operation – Maduro in handcuffs, wearing ear protectors and a type of blindfold that looked like dark sunglasses.

From the USS Iwo Jima, he was first flown to the US Navy base at Guantánamo Bay.

The Maduros were then flown on a government plane to Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York state, and then via helicopter to Manhattan.

On Saturday, a video was released showing Maduro at the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) headquarters in New York.

He and Cilia Flores are now being held in a detention centre in the city.

They have been charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.

“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi.