The French spy involved in planning the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour has been tracked down after fleeing New Zealand.

Monday marks the 32nd anniversary of France’s bombing of the Greenpeace ship that killed freelance photographer Fernando Pereira.

Fairfax NZ has tracked now-retired French secret service agent Christine Cabon to a village in France.

Ms Cabon infiltrated Greenpeace to help plan the bombing.

She’s told Fairfax that while she regrets the death of Mr Pereira, she won’t be apologising and will respect her contractual obligation to the army which forbids her speaking for 50 years after seeing active service.

“My job was what it was. I entered the army to prevent international and national conflict because my family, originally from Alsace, suffered from the war,” she tells Fairfax.

“I think all military people who serve their countries can find themselves in situations they hadn’t wished for.”

In April 1985, Ms Cabon introduced herself to staff at Greenpeace’s Auckland offices as aristocrat and activist ‘Frederique Bonlieu’ with a letter from Greenpeace in Paris.

She made friends with Greenpeace directors and volunteers, while acquiring details of its workings.

“In Auckland, they were happy to get a Frenchie to help in an anti-French nuclear testing operation,” French historian Gerald Arboit says.

She flew to Israel just before the bombing and then two weeks later as police were about to arrest her, she fled to France.