A French billionaire has said he spied on a former president and on the car giant Renault for the country’s security agency, reports The Guardian.
Xavier Niel, a co-owner of Le Monde newspaper, claimed that as a teenager in the 1980s he worked for the state internal security services when they were interested in hacking, which was then a relatively new technique.
Niel, 52, a telecommunications tycoon, told a parliamentary TV channel that he hacked a number of mobile phones including that of the then president, François Mitterrand.
“In 1986, I was in the newspapers for having hacked into the data of mobile phones in France, including that of President Mitterrand,” he said.
Niel also admitted targeting Robert Pandraud, who was a junior minister for security under President Jacques Chirac.