France-US ties hit over spying row
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French President Francois Hollande says he spoke with President Barack Obama about revelations of US eavesdropping on French leaders, and that Obama reiterated promises to stop spying tactics considered “unacceptable between allies.”
Hollande said in a statement that the two spoke by telephone yesterday after the release of WikiLeaks documents about NSA intercepts of conversations involving Hollande and his two predecessors between 2006 and 2012.
Obama made a similar pledge after Edward Snowden revealed the extent of NSA surveillance powers in 2013.
Obama and Hollande discussed “the principles that should govern relations between allies in the domain of intelligence,” the French president said.
Earlier, angry and embarrassed, France had summoned the US ambassador Jane Hartley to respond to the revelations by WikiLeaks that the US National Security Agency eavesdropped on three successive French presidents and other top officials.
The release of the spying revelations appeared to be timed to coincide with a final vote yesterday in the French Parliament on a bill allowing broad new surveillance powers, in particular to counter terrorism threats.
Hollande, calling the US spying an “unacceptable” security breach, convened two emergency meetings as a result of the disclosures about the NSA’s spying. The first was with France’s top security officials, the second with leading legislators, many of whom have already voted for the new surveillance measure.
The documents appear to capture top French officials in Paris between 2006 and 2012 talking candidly about Greece’s economy, relations with Germany, and American spying on allies.
While there were no huge surprises, the release of the documents late on Tuesday angered and embarrassed French officialdom.
The top floor of the US Embassy, visible from France’s presidential Elysee Palace, reportedly was filled with spying equipment hidden behind trompe l’oeil paintings of windows, according to the Liberation newspaper, which partnered with WikiLeaks and the website Mediapart on the documents.
Hollande is also sending France’s top intelligence coordinator to the US shortly, to ensure that promises made after earlier NSA spying revelations in 2013 and 2014 have been kept.
US National Security Council spokesman Ned Price released a statement late on Tuesday saying the US is “not targeting and will not target the communications of President Hollande.”
Price however did not address claims that the US had previously eavesdropped on Hollande or his predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac.
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