France slams U.S. on spying

By Nicholas Vinocur

President Francois Hollande's office calls it "unacceptable" that French leaders and their staffs were monitored for at least six years.

PARIS — France urged the U.S. on Wednesday to respect its promises to stop spying on its allies following reports that the National Security Agency conducted massive surveillance operations on three presidents and their cabinets for at least six years.

“American authorities had made commitments,” President Francois Hollande’s office wrote in a statement. “They must be recalled and strictly respected.”

The U.S. allegedly spied on presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Hollande as well as senior diplomatic and economic staff between 2006 and 2012, news organizations Mediapart and Liberation reported Wednesday, citing leaked documents from the U.S. National Security Agency obtained by Wikileaks.

The publications wrote, referring to NSA documents allegedly classified “top secret,” that the NSA phone taps also a vast circle of officials including members of parliament, the former spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the former French ambassador to Washington, Pierre Vimont.
Hollande convened his top defense advisers Wednesday to discuss the revelations, according to French media reports, which cited unnamed presidential officials. Another meeting is scheduled around noon at the Elysee presidential palace with members of parliament to “take stock,” Le Monde newspaper reported.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has summoned U.S. Ambassador Jane D. Hartley to a meeting Wednesday afternoon, BFMTV reported, citing sources.

“These are unacceptable facts that have already given rise to talks between the United States and France,” Hollande’s office wrote in the statement, citing presidential-level talks in 2013 and 2014. “France, which has further reinforced its control and protection systems, will tolerate no action that compromises its security and the protection of its interests.”

New information about the sweeping extent of NSA spying on a country allied to the U.S. is likely to revive criticism of the Americans’ posture toward its allies that first flared up up in the wake of revelations made by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. In 2013, leaks showing the NSA had tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel caused a backlash in her country, which still bore scars from massive surveillance on the general public carried out by the Nazi and former Communist East German governments.

Sarkozy, according to sources quoted by Le Monde newspaper, denounced what he called “unacceptable methods in general and in particular when it comes to allies.”

But France, whose National Assembly votes to pass a law granting the government sweeping surveillance powers to combat terrorism, has traditionally taken a more laconic attitude to allegations of spying than Germany, and the lasting impact on Franco-US relations is likely to be muted. Many French senior officials are saying off the record that while they are unhappy with spying, it is common knowledge that allies do listen in on one another’s conversations.

Some French politicians noted the relatively unsurprising nature of the revelations.

“As with every pseudo-revelation about the NSA, it’s the spies in Moscow and China who are laughing in the face of Western naivete,” tweeted Arnaud Danjean, a center-right member of European parliament and former French security official.

However, with a French presidential election just two years away, the leaks are likely to become a topic of discussion in the campaign, notably on the inadequacy of French counter-surveillance measures and France’s love-hate relationship with the United States — a frequent punching bag for both the left and far-right.

“Once again we rediscover that the United States has no allies, only targets or vassals,” tweeted socialist MP Jean-Jacques Urvoas.

Indeed European opponents to the TTIP free trade deal between the European Union and the United States are likely to use fresh outrage over U.S. spying to further douse hopes that an agreement will ever be struck. That prospect is already looking remote after the European Parliament decided in June to postpone a vote to endorse the EU’s negotiating position. 

“France must react firmly and send a strong signal today by withdrawing from the ongoing negotiations on the disastrous TTIP accord,” National Front chief Marine Le Pen said in a statement.

She added: “The French must start to realize that the United States, meaning its governments, which we clearly distinguish form its people, are not an allied or even a friendly nation.”

The ruling socialist party also struck a harsh tone against the United States.

“How can the United States, which is tied by defense agreements in NATO, decide to listen in to the heads of allied states?” it asked in a statement. “It’s not because we knew or suspected this that these massive, systematic and uncontrolled recordings are tolerable.”

The leaks suggest that the NSA took a particular interest in listening in to conversations about the Greek debt crisis, which was already preoccupying French and German leaders in 2012, the year that Hollande entered office.
In one intelligence memo titled “Global Sigint Highlights,” referring to ‘signals intelligence’, or phone-tapping, the NSA allegedly referred to a conversation between Hollande and his then-prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault concerning secret meetings in Paris with German Social Democratic Party officials regarding a potential Greek exit from the euro zone. It also cited to “earlier reporting” about Hollande, in which he complained about Merkel’s position on the Greek crisis — suggesting that phone-tapping of the current French president was a frequent occurrence.
According to Mediapart, initials at the top of the document suggest the surveillance was carried out by a “Foreign Satellite.” While the leaks do not say which country may have assisted the U.S., previous leaks have shown that German security services at times allowed their satellites to be used for surveillance. Such revelations caused outrage in Germany and prompted the opening of a parliamentary investigation to determine what time of documents Wikileaks had obtained.
Another, earlier document shows a list of tapped lines that includes the mobile phone of Sarkozy (“FR PRES CELL”), his chief of staff, various advisers, the secretary of state for trade, the finance ministry — and even a number in the aviation authority responsible for managing France’s government fleet of airplanes.