France condemns 'unacceptable' spying on its presidents

AA chorus of disapproval, from the French government to politicians of all colours, has greeted the news that at least three French presidents – François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac - and other senior members of the establishment have been spied on by the Americans for years. The revelations from Mediapart and Libération, working in conjunction with WikiLeaks, produced strong condemnation from the Elysée on Wednesday even though it had initially refused to comment when the story first broke on Tuesday evening.

In a statement it said: “These are unacceptable facts that have already been the subject of clarification between the US and France, notably at the end of 2013 when the first revelations were made and during a state visit by the president of the Republic to the United States in February 2014.” The Elysée added: “Promises were made by the American authorities. They must remember and strictly respect them. France, which has reinforced its control and protection measures, will not tolerate any scheming that threatens its security and the protection of its interests.”

Meanwhile it emerged that the American ambassador in Paris, Jane Hartley, was called in for a meeting with French foreign minister Laurent Fabius on Wednesday afternoon. President François Hollande also convened a meeting of the presidential defence council on Wednesday morning to discuss the issue and held talks with Laurent Fabius, interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and prime minister Manuel Valls. He then held a lunchtime meeting with a group of Parliamentarians to “update” then on the unfolding saga.

Later in the day the French president had a telephone conversation with US president Barack Obama during which the American head of state promised that  no more eavesdropping was taking place on French heads of state. “President Obama reiterated without ambiguity his firm commitment, made in November 2013 after the Snowden affair, and which had already been evoked during the state visit in February 2014 [editor's note, by Hollande to Washington], to end with the practices which may have taken place in the past and which were unacceptable among allies”, according to a statement from the Elysée. “Senior personnel from French intelligence will go to Washington very soon to deepen the cooperation,” it added.

Government spokesman Stéphane Le Foll, interviewed on I-Télé: said: “We cannot have this type of practice concerning the presidents of the Republic. It’s unacceptable between allies”. He added that the government was going to request “details” from the White House. However, Stéphane Le Foll’s trip to America, to discuss the transatlantic trade treaty, scheduled for Wednesday June 24th, was still for the moment going ahead. He added that “France doesn’t tap its allies’ phones” and that “to target France is terrorism”. According to him, France does have a “phone tap system”, but “only to develop strategies against terrorists or people who might carry out that type of action against the country”.


One of the three presidents eavesdropped by the Americans, Jacques Chirac, considers the spying “shocking” and “unacceptable”, according to his entourage. “France and the United States are historic allies. France has always acted towards the United States in a spirit of friendship, trust, independence and frankness … such methods between allied countries and friends are unacceptable,” said a member of the entourage.

The employment François Rebsamen told France Info radio that the revelations were “serious” and involved “abnormal practices”. He noted: “It’s a matter that the president and prime minister are taking very seriously … among friends, this isn’t done”. Right-wing senator Gérard Longuet, a former defence minister, revealed on BFMTV that when he was in office he had been warned about the “probability of being listened to”. According to him, phone tapping by “a major power” is “deplorable”. Longuet said: “The United States must stop eavesdropping on its allies.”

Jean-Jacques Urvoas, socialist president of the National Assembly law committee, and chief architect of the intelligence bill, showed his anger at the news. He wrote on Twitter (in French and English):  “And once again we discover that the United States does not have allies, they have only targets or vassals.”

Meanwhile opponents of Urvoas' bill, due for adoption by the National Assembly on Wednesday June 24th, drew a direct parallel between the US spying and the measures being prepared by France. For example socialist MP Pouria Amirshahi, who will vote against the bill, said: “If we need one more reason, a concerte demonstration of the risks of the surveillance law.”

Former socialist minister Guillaume Garot, attacked what he called “scandalous practices between allies. The United States must explain itself very fast.” And one of those targeted by the taps, former socialist economy minister and current European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, said he was “profoundly shocked” by the revelations:

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, co-founder of the left-wing Parti de gauche, used the revelation of American phone-tapping to demand the suspension of negotiations on the transatlantic trade treaty between Europe and the US: “This spying is a violent attack on the sovereignty of France. It’s been pursued even after France’s return to NATO’s integrated command under Nicolas Sarkozy! Bleeding-heart pro-Americans are the village idiots. In such circumstances, the suspension of negotiations on the big transatlantic market is a matter of urgency.” He also requested political asylum and French nationality for WikiLeaks' Julian Assange – a co-author of the Mediapart revelations - and National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden “for outstanding services to our country”.

François de Rugy, co-president of the green-ecologist group in the National Assembly said: “The publication of these tapped conversations just goes to show that we need a law that states what intelligence services are and aren’t authorised to do.” This was a reference to the controversial surveillance law that was due to get final Parliamentary approval on Wednesday and which Rugy has backed. However his green MP colleague, former housing minister Cécile Duflot, who is opposed to the new snooping law, tweeted that the revelations vindicated her stance: “When I think of the arguments and intimidation that have been used against those who are against the#PJLintelligence [editor's note, the surveillance bill]... #nocomment”.

“Phone tapping, massive surveillance – where are the limits of the intelligence services? The USA listens to France with the complicity of Germany… Europe is in mourning”, commented green MEP Eva Joly.

'We had also been infiltrated by the Chinese army'

One of those targeted by the phone taps, the former secretary general of the Elysée and ex-minister of the interior, Claude Guéant, told Mediapart: “I had a strong feeling this [editor's note, i.e. eavesdropping] was the case since information had been circulated in the press on the fact that the French were being tapped, but previously we hadn’t the least information to back this up. I find this practise scandalous. We asked if there was a means to reinforce the security of Elysée communications. It was very difficult, very complicated, apart from the president’s encrypted line, of course. It was shortly after our arrival, when we were getting to know the place. Improvements have been made since.”

Guéant added: “The French government has to react appropriately, it’s up to them to prove that they are the government. At the very least, this necessitates an explanation at the highest level, an absolute commitment to ending these practises. We’re heading towards a world that’s extremely worrying, where nobody has any privacy, any confidentiality any more. I wasn’t 100% enthusiastic about the intelligence law, there’s an incredible commercial exploitation. That I should receive an ad for shoes just because I was spotted walking on the high street, looking at shoes, that isn’t right.”

Frédéric Péchenard, current director general of Les Républicains (ex-UMP) and former director-general of the French National Police, told Mediapart that the news came as no great shock to him. “If your information is true, I’m not surprised insofar as I know that technically the United States have considerable technical means. That’s what the NSA’s for. The American intelligence services have immense, worldwide capabilities. If they listened in on Merkel, you can’t see why the others wouldn’t have been tapped too. If we want to be able to defend ourselves, we need our services to be up to it. We need more efficient human and legal techniques. Spying is something that’s always existed in the world. To be spied on by those who are supposed to be our friends can pose a problem of a diplomatic order.”

The MP Pierre Lellouche, another of those tapped by the NSA, while he was Nicolas Sarkozy’s overseas trade minister, was also not surprised by Mediapart's revelations. “I, who was a good friend of America, am less and less so. At the time, we had also been infiltrated by the Chinese army. The French intelligence services had warned us that the phones and computers of the five finance ministers, and also those of their colleagues, had been hacked. We were sworn to silence, we were careful not to say too much, but you do have to communicate. It’s enough for a mobile phone to be left on.”

And the ex-minister admitted: “We didn’t have the security measures that we had during the Cold War with the Soviets. The French security system isn’t organised for that. In the United States, however, your mobile phone is taken away from you as soon as you enter a state secretariat. The same isn’t demanded in France.”

Lellouche added: “I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised to have been tapped while I was in charge of international trade. They’re very interested in industrial espionage. We’re always having that kind of conversation. This, in fact, is the argument that we keep on hearing at the moment in the context of the law on intelligence: everybody’s listening in on us, so why stop us, ourselves, from listening? Everybody’s listening to everybody everywhere.”

“We’re not naive, we know that the United States had techniques for intercepting conversations”, reacted former defence minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. She revealed that “very sensitive conversations” between the defence minister and the president of the Republic are conducted away from the phone. “But this poses problems of trust and that can have consequences on relations between countries. Did the president of the United States know? Did his ministers know?” she asked.

On Twitter, on Tuesday evening, former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that the Senate's foreign affairs committee would discuss the issue on Wednesday. He added: “It seems a very serious affair. We must know the truth.”

MP Laure de La Raudière, from the right-wing Les Républicains, a strong opponent of the surveillance bill, reacted to the news with with two tweets in which she used the arguments of the bill's proponents against themselves. “For François Hollande, [prime minister] Manuel Valls and [interior minister] Bernard Cazeneuve to be eavesdropped is nothing serious, they have nothing to hide...” In the second tweet she added: “We await the reaction of François Hollande. Come on, a little intellectual honesty! You're getting the surveillance bill voted through.”

François Baroin, a minister under both Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, now a senator and mayor of Troyes for the right-wing Les Républicains (ex-UMP), declared on BFMTV that “there were doubts” regarding the risk of phone tapping when he was a member of the government. “We used [an encrypted phone] for conversations that were a bit more serious”. For him, these are “intolerable misdemeanors”. He added: “It’s unacceptable, dangerous for national security, for the head of state to be tapped”.

Speaking on France Culture radio, François Bayrou, president of the centrist MoDem party, declared: “In what I’ve read [about the NSA], nothing is that surprising”. According to him, “Gandhi was pursued by a swarm of spies, and informed them in advance of the roadmap for his action”. He added, “I feel for those poor people working for the NSA who have to listen to hundreds of people…”

Vice-president of the far-right National Front, Florian Philippot, was also dismayed by the revelations and called for a “very firm reaction” from the French government, which must, according to him, “summon the American ambassador. A strong gesture is required, such as an immediate suspension of talks on the transatlantic trade treaty currently being negotiated with the United States”. He added: “The independence of France must be saved.”

In Germany, green MPs on the investigative committee looking into the eavesdropping scandal there immediately wondered whether the tapping of French heads of state and their colleagues might have been carried out from German soil. “The circle is tightening”, tweeted Berlin MP Hans-Christian Ströbele.

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• The French version of this article can be found here.

 
English version by Chloé Baker and Michael Streeter