Add Category
Spied on: Former French presidents Nicolas Sarkozy (left) and Jacques Chirac (right) and current president Francois Hollande (centre). Photo: AFP
Paris:Â The French government has reacted angrily to revelations about extensive eavesdropping by the USÂ government on the private conversations of senior French leaders, including three presidents and dozens of senior government figures.
President Francois Hollande called an emergency meeting of the Defense Council on Wednesday morning to discuss the revelations published by the French news website Mediapart and the left-leaning newspaper Liberation about spying by the National Security Agency.
Called in: US Ambassador Jane Hartley walks out of the office of French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius on Wednesday. Photo: AP
He spoke with President Barack Obama on Wednesday and made clear "the principles that must govern relations between allies on intelligence matters," the Elysee Palace said in a statement.
Advertisement
Earlier in the day, the French government released a spare but strongly worded statement - including to the Australian media -Â saying that the eavesdropping was "unacceptable" and that it would not "tolerate any actions that put French security and the protection of French interests in danger."
Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday that Australian spies got to listen in on the telephone calls of the French presidents as part of its partnership in NSA's Five Eyes program.
Not amused: French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius briefs the media. Photo: AP
The revelations come as France is debating legislation that would allow the mass collection of data, as well as more targeted eavesdropping by its intelligence services.
The new information, regarding French officials from 2006 to 2012, was published on the website of the anti-secrecy organisation WikiLeaks, which did not say where it had obtained it. Julian Assange, a founder of WikiLeaks, is listed as one of the authors of the Mediapart and Liberation articles.
The Mediapart and Liberation articles featured conversations involving three French presidents: Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Mr Hollande. The information that was released was largely predictable, although it certainly was not the kind of information that anyone involved would want distributed to a wider audience.
Francois Hollande's office branded as unacceptable reported spying by the United States himself and former presidents. Photo: Reuters
Notes written by unidentified analysts about conversations in 2012 between Mr Hollande and his prime minister at the time, Jean-Marc Ayrault, show that Mr Hollande was worried about the economic situation in Greece.
Mr Sarkozy comes across in the documents as grandiose, expressing the view that he is the one who can "solve the world financial crisis," according to one cable.
The White House was quick to release a statement saying that there was currently no surveillance of the French president and that it would not eavesdrop on him.
Mr Sarkozy's office said he would not comment on the revelations.
Only five documents - one on Mr Hollande, three on Mr Sarkozy and one on Mr Chirac - were released by the two news outlets, but a WikiLeaks employee in Paris, Juan Branca, said that more information concerning France would be made public in the coming days.
The New York Times, Fairfax Media