Paris: The United States National Security Agency spied on French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, WikiLeaks said in a press statement published on Tuesday, citing top secret intelligence reports and technical documents.

The revelations were first reported in French daily Liberation and on news website Mediapart, which said the NSA spied on the presidents during a period of at least 2006 until May 2012, the month Hollande took over from Sarkozy.

WikiLeaks said the documents derived from directly targeted NSA surveillance of the communications of Hollande (2012–present), Sarkozy (2007–2012) and Chirac (1995–2007), as well as French cabinet ministers and the French ambassador to the US.

According to the documents, Sarkozy is said to have considered restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks without US involvement and Hollande feared a Greek euro zone exit back in 2012.

These latest revelations regarding spying among allied Western countries come after it emerged that the NSA had spied on Germany and Germany’s own BND intelligence agency had cooperated with the NSA to spy on officials and companies elsewhere in Europe.

‘The French people have a right to know that their elected government is subject to hostile surveillance from a supposed ally,’ WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in the statement, adding that more ‘important revelations’ would soon follow.

The documents include summaries of conversations between French government officials on the global financial crisis, the future of the European Union, the relationship between Hollande’s administration and Merkel’s government, French efforts to determine the make-up of the executive staff of the United Nations, and a dispute between the French and US governments over US spying on France.

The documents also contained the cell phone numbers of numerous officials in the Elysee presidential palace including the direct cell phone of the president, WikiLeaks said.

Last week, WikiLeaks published more than 60,000 diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia and said on its website it would release half a million more in the coming weeks.

Spying among friends?

Former NSA employee Edward Snowden created an uproar in Germany after he revealed that Washington had carried out large-scale electronic espionage in Germany and claimed the NSA had bugged Merkel’s phone.

‘While the German disclosures focused on the isolated fact that senior officials were targeted by US intelligence, WikiLeaks’ publication today provides much greater insight into US spying on its allies,’ WikiLeaks said.

This includes ‘the actual content of intelligence products deriving from the intercepts, showing how the US spies on the phone calls of French leaders and ministers for political, economic and diplomatic intelligence’.

WikiLeaks said NSA intercepts showed that French President Francois Hollande called a secret meeting of his cabinet about the potential consequences of a Greek exit from the euro zone as early as May 2012.

It also said the Socialist Hollande, who at that point had been in power a few days, had been disappointed by a first meeting as president with conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel and requested talks with leaders of the Social Democratic Party, her centre-left junior coalition partner.

‘Hollande stressed that the meeting would be secret,’ WikiLeaks quoted an NSA intercept from 22 May 2012 as saying of talks he requested with ‘appropriate ministers’ in his cabinet to discuss possible fall-out on France’s economy and banks if Greece exited the euro zone.

In another intercept dated June 10, 2011, Sarkozy is said to have considered restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks without US involvement.

An earlier one from 2008 has Sarkozy, widely considered in France to be pro-American, being critical of the US government’s handling of the financial crisis.

‘The president blamed many of the current economic problems on mistakes made by the US government, but believes that Washington is now heeding some of his advice,’ it said.

The French president’s office was not immediately reachable for comment.

The French foreign ministry declined to comment on the WikiLeaks statement.

The US State Department also declined to comment.

Hollande’s office said on Tuesday the president plans to meet with his defence committee on Wednesday to discuss the WikiLeaks statement.

Michele Alliot-Marie, former defence and foreign affairs minister under Chirac and Sarkozy, told France’s iTele TV channel that France had long known that the US had the technical means to try to intercept conversations.

‘We are not naive, the conversations that took place between the defence ministry and the president did not happen on the telephone,’ she said. ‘That being said, it does raise the problem of the relationship of trust between allies.’

Here are some key points revealed by the documents, which can be found at https://wikileaks.org/nsa-france/.

Francois Hollande

A note dated May 22, 2012 and classified as ‘Top Secret’ shows that French president Francois Hollande had ‘approved holding secret meetings in Paris to discuss the eurozone crisis, particularly the consequences of a Greek exit from the eurozone’.

Hollande also arranged in a meeting with then-French prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on May 18, just days after he had taken office, to hold secret meetings with Germany’s opposition Social Democratic Party. Ayrault warned the president to keep the meetings secret to avoid ‘diplomatic problems’, with the cable explaining he meant ‘what could happen if German Chancellor Angela Merkel finds out that Hollande is going behind her back to meet with the German opposition’.

The note said that after earlier talks with Merkel in Berlin, Hollande had complained that nothing of substance was achieved and that the Chancellor was fixated on Greece, ‘on which he claimed she had given up and was unwilling to budge’.

This, the note said, made Hollande ‘very worried’ for Greece and the Greek people, who he said may react by voting for an extremist party.

Nicolas Sarkozy

A note titled ‘Sarkozy Sees Himself as Only One Who Can Resolve World Financial Crisis’ and dated 2008 records how then-president Nicolas Sarkozy ‘considers it his responsibility to Europe and the world to step up to the plate and resolve the world financial crisis’.

Sarkozy further declared his belief he was ‘the only one’ who could step into the breach, given France’s EU presidency at the time, and the lack of US engagement in the crisis.

The note said that Sarkozy blamed US ‘mistakes’ for many of the economic problems, but added he ‘believes that Washington is now heeding some of his advice’.

A note dated on 24 March 2010 reveals that Sarkozy planned to express his frustration to US President Barack Obama over delays in a proposed bilateral intelligence cooperation agreement, with the main sticking point being ‘the US desire to continue spying on France’.

The note, recounting an exchange between France’s ambassador to the US Pierre Vimont and Sarkozy’s diplomatic adviser Jean-David Levitte, said Sarkozy planned to raise that along with a number of other sensitive topics at a meeting with Obama on 31 March.

A third note, dated 10 June 2011, describes Sarkozy’s determination on 7 June to go ahead with a bid to restart direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, ‘in spite of an apparent lack of interest on the part of some major players’.

The note said Sarkozy was wary about including the Middle East Quartet—the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia—in the process as they ‘might not bow to Paris’s wishes’.

Sarkozy was considering appealing to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev for a possible joint initiative without the US, the note said, as well as issuing an ultimatum to Obama regarding Palestinian statehood.  

Jacques Chirac

A note dated from 2006 describes a conversation between the then-president and his foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on the appointment of a UN envoy. The note comments that ‘Chirac’s detailed orders may be in response to the foreign minister’s propensity, amply demonstrated in the past and the impetus behind a number of presidential reprimands, for making ill-timed or inaccurate remarks’.

Will not do so in the future: US

The US is not targeting French leader Francois Hollande’s communications and will not do so in the future, the White House said, after documents published by WikiLeaks showed Washington had wiretapped the president and his two predecessors.

France is to convene a meeting of its defence council Wednesday after the communications—classed as ‘Top Secret’ and revealing spying from 2006 to 2012—were published online by WikiLeaks, in partnership with French newspaper Liberation and the Mediapart website.

They come just weeks after President Barack Obama signed into law landmark legislation ending the US government’s bulk telephone data dragnet, significantly reversing American policy by reining in the most controversial surveillance programme since 9/11.

‘We are not targeting and will not target the communications of President Hollande,’ said National Security Council spokesman Ned Price in Washington late Tuesday, calling the US partnership with France ‘indispensable’ but without addressing what might have been done in the past.

The revelations prompted the French leader to call the defence council meeting first thing Wednesday ‘to evaluate the nature of the information published by the press on Tuesday evening and to draw useful conclusions’, said one of his aides.

Among the documents, which showed that former presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy were also spied on, are five from the US National Security Agency, including the most recent dated 22 May 2012, just days after Hollande took office.

It claims the French leader ‘approved holding secret meetings in Paris to discuss the eurozone crisis, particularly the consequences of a Greek exit from the eurozone’.

It also says that Hollande believed that after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that she ‘had given up (on Greece) and was unwilling to budge’.

‘This made Hollande very worried for Greece and the Greek people, who might react by voting for an extremist party,’ according to the document.

The same file also alleges that the French leader went behind Merkel’s back to schedule meetings in Paris with members of the Social Democrats—Germany’s main opposition party then.

‘Unacceptable methods’

Another document, dated 2008, was titled ‘Sarkozy sees himself as only one who can resolve world financial crisis’, and said the former French president ‘blamed many of the current economic problems on mistakes made by the US government, but believes that Washington is now heeding some of his advice’.

Chirac’s choice for appointments at the United Nations was the subject of a file dated 2006. In that same document, then foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was described as someone who has the ‘propensity... for making ill-timed or inaccurate remarks’.

Contacted Tuesday by AFP, Hollande’s aide would not comment on the revelations, saying only: ‘We will see what it is about’.

In Washington, NSC spokesman Price echoed a statement issued earlier Tuesday by the security council, saying: ‘We do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike.’

He added: ‘We work closely with France on all matters of international concern, and the French are indispensable partners.’

The French ambassador to the US Gerard Araud appeared to downplay the revelations, stating on Twitter: ‘Every diplomat lives with the certainty that their communications are listened to, and not by just one country. Real world.’

Important, confidential discussions are held by ‘secure methods of communication’, he continued, but ‘all our other devices are, by definition, listened to’.

But an aide of Sarkozy blasted the alleged spying as ‘unacceptable methods as a general rule and more particularly between allies’.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said French citizens had a right to know their government was ‘subject to hostile surveillance from a supposed ally’, and promised more ‘timely and important’ revelations soon.

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 had revealed mass US surveillance activities, sparking global outrage.

British newspaper The Guardian reported at the time that the NSA has listened in on the phone calls of 35 world leaders. According to different reports they include the leaders of France, Mexico and Brazil.

While it was not known then if Hollande’s phone was tapped, the French leader had said in a visit in February 2014 to Washington that the two allies had resolved their differences over American digital eavesdropping.

‘Mutual trust has been restored,’ Hollande said then.