Leading French daily newspaper Le Monde reports today on how the American National Security Agency (NSA) spies on France.
The documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden also contain information about communications intercepted by the NSA in France. One image in the documents leaked by Snowden, some of which have been accessed by Le Monde reveals that the NSA recorded the data from “70.3 million French telephone calls” from 10th December 2012 to 8th January. The content of SMS (text) messages is also recorded by scanning their contents for keywords.
Explanations in the documents consulted by Le Monde suggest that the NSA was targeting “both people suspected of links with terrorist activities and individuals targeted simply for belonging to the worlds of business, politics or the French government” under a programme codenamed US-985D. When contacted on this point, the American authorities simply referred to the statement issued on 8th June 2012 by James R. Clapper, National Intelligence Director which states that the United States Government can only collect data if it suspects activities linked to terrorism, to cyber-attacks and nuclear proliferation, according to Le Monde Informatique.
When questioned about these revelations, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said he was going to ask the American authorities for explanations describing the revelations as “shocking”, whilst French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has summoned the American ambassador to a meeting ((translation: to give Uncle Sam’s representative in Paris a dressing down. Ed.).