America
French presidents 'surveilled' by NSA: WikiLeaks
Paris, June 24
French President Francois
Hollande, ex-presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, and French
cabinet ministers were surveilled by the National Security Agency (NSA)
of the US, WikiLeaks said on Wednesday in a press release.
WikiLeaks
on Tuesday began publishing "Espionnage Elysee", a collection of top
secret intelligence reports and technical documents from NSA concerning
targeting and signals intelligence intercepts of the communications of
high-level officials from successive French governments over the last
ten years, Xinhua news agency reported.
"The documents also
contain the 'selectors' from the target list, detailing the cell phone
numbers of numerous officials in the Elysee up to and including the
direct cell phone of the President," the press release said.
According
to WikiLeaks, the to-be-published documents are intelligence summaries
of conversations between French government officials concerning some of
the most pressing issues facing France and the international community,
including a dispute between the French and the US governments over the
US spying on France.
"The French people have a right to know that
their elected government is subject to hostile surveillance from a
supposed ally," said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, adding that
"French readers can expect more timely and important revelations in the
near future".
This revelation of American's spying against French
leaders came not long after Germany opened an investigation to
Americans tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German
officials.
France is formally a close ally of the US, and plays a
key role in a number of US-associated international institutions,
including the Group of 7 (G7) and NATO.