France won’t tolerate “any action jeopardizing its security and the protection of its interests,” the country’s Defense Council said Wednesday in the wake of reports that the United States spied on President Francois Hollande and two of his predecessors.
WikiLeaks has published what it said were National Security Agency reports about secret communications of the last three French presidents between 2006 and 2012.
“These unacceptable facts already resulted in clarifications between France and the United States, particularly back in 2013 with the first revelations and during the official visit of the French President to the United States in February 2014,” the French Defense Council said in a statement Wednesday.
Holland had convened a meeting of the council after reports appeared in the French press about the information released by WikiLeaks.
French newspaper Liberation and online outlet Mediapart cited five NSA reports published by Wikileaks on Tuesday and purportedly pulled from intercepted communications of former Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as Hollande.
The council said that U.S. had made “commitments” after the communication between the countries on the issue.
“They must be recalled and strictly respected,” it said, adding that France has “reinforced its control and protection protocol.”
According to a WikiLeaks news release, the cache of “top secret” documents includes “intelligence summaries of conversations between French government officials concerning some of the most pressing issues facing France and the international community.”
These include “the global financial crisis, the Greek debt crisis, the leadership and future of the European Union, the relationship between the Hollande administration and the German government of Angela Merkel, French efforts to determine the make-up of the executive staff of the United Nations, French involvement in the conflict in Palestine and a dispute between the French and US governments over US spying on France.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the French people “have a right to know that their elected government is subject to hostile surveillance from a supposed ally.”
WikiLeaks is proud of its work with Liberation and Mediapart to bring the story to light, Assange said, adding that “French readers can expect more timely and important revelations in the near future.”
France is a longstanding ally of the United States and, as a fellow permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and NATO, a key partner in international diplomacy. U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this year referred to France as “America’s oldest ally.”
The U.S. government has not yet responded to the WikiLeaks claims.
But they are not the first reports alleging U.S. espionage against allies.
In 2013, France’s Le Monde newspaper reported that the NSA had monitored phone calls made in France, citing documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to WikiLeaks. That surveillance was conducted on French citizens and conducted on a “massive scale,” as reported by Le Monde.
Those particular phone intercepts took place from December 10, 2012, to January 8, 2013, Le Monde reported. An NSA graph showed an average of 3 million data intercepts a day.
Also in 2013, CNN reported on claims of NSA surveillance of other world leaders, including Merkel and the presidents of Brazil and Mexico.