French counterespionage authorities have detained a senior French civil servant on suspicion of spying for the North Korean government, a French judicial official said.

Benoit Quennedey, an administrator in the French Senate who is also president of the Franco-Korean Friendship Association, was taken into custody Sunday evening by the DGSI, France’s domestic security and intelligence agency. He is suspected of passing information to Pyongyang that could threaten the “fundamental interests of the nation,” the official said....