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nicolas sarkozy
Ce N'est Pas Acceptable: NSA Spying Bonanza on French Leaders Revealed
Documents revealed by WikiLeaks show the details extracted from phone conversations that allowed for "political, economic and diplomatic" advantage over supposed ally
Jun 24, 2015
The U.S. National Security Agency has been conducting high-level digital and phone surveillance against top French government officials, including the nation's three most recent presidents, the media outlet WikiLeaks has revealed by publishing "top secret" intelligence reports that include targeting information and specific intercepts gathered over the last decade.
While indicating the trove of sensitive and potentially embarrassing documents won't be the last, the new revelations offer more evidence--in addition to similar discoveries about NSA spying on top German officials--that not even the U.S. government's closest European allies are considered off-limits when it comes to the spying eyes of its intelligence agencies. In coordination with WikiLeaks, the news was first reported in the French outlets Liberation and Mediapart.
In its release, WikiLeaks references the NSA's spying on Germany, which caused an uproar in that country, but said the new documents related to the spying on the French provide much greater insight into how the U.S. monitors its allies' leaders and the kind of information it is able to collect by doing so. The documents, which can viewed here and here, include lists of "targets" and the contents of "intercepts" derived from U.S. spying on the phone calls of French leaders and ministers in order to gain "political, economic and diplomatic" advantage.
According to WikiLeaks:
The top secret documents derive from directly targeted NSA surveillance of the communications of French Presidents Francois Hollande (2012-present), Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012), and Jacques Chirac (1995-2007), as well as French cabinet ministers and the French Ambassador to the United States. 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.
Prominent within the top secret cache of documents are intelligence summaries of conversations between French government officials concerning some of the most pressing issues facing France and the international community, including 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 and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said, "The French people have a right to know that their elected government is subject to hostile surveillance from a supposed ally." He added, "French readers can expect more timely and important revelations in the near future."
In response to the news of the spying on France, the French Ambassador to the U.S. was summoned home and a statement from the office of President Francois Hollande expressed grave concerns. "France will not tolerate actions that threaten its security and the protection of its interests," the statement said.
Referencing previous revelations of U.S. spying against French officials, the president's office described the new information as "unacceptable". It said such issues over surveillance have "already been the subject of clarification between the US and France, notably at the end of 2013 when the first revelations were made and during a state visit by the president of the Republic to the United States in February 2014. The US authorities made commitments. They need to be recalled and strictly respected."
Hollande also called an emergency cabinet meeting and beckoned top French lawmakers to the Elysee Palace to brief them on the situation.
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Obama's Bad Influence
Of all the explanations for Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, the one that rang truest came from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "It sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples." In other words, this was Europe's way of saying to America, "We love you again"--sort of like those weird "renewal of vows" ceremonies that couples have after surviving a rough patch.
Now that Europe and the United States are officially reunited, it seems worth asking: is this necessarily a good thing?
Oct 16, 2009
Of all the explanations for Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, the one that rang truest came from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "It sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples." In other words, this was Europe's way of saying to America, "We love you again"--sort of like those weird "renewal of vows" ceremonies that couples have after surviving a rough patch.
Now that Europe and the United States are officially reunited, it seems worth asking: is this necessarily a good thing? The Nobel Committee, which awarded the prize specifically for Obama's embrace of "multilateral diplomacy," is evidently convinced that US engagement on the world stage is a triumph for peace and justice. I'm not so sure. After nine months in office, Obama has a clear track record as a global player. Again and again, US negotiators have chosen not to strengthen international laws and protocols but rather to weaken them, often leading other rich countries in a race to the bottom.
Let's start where the stakes are highest: climate change. During the Bush years, European politicians distinguished themselves from the United States by expressing their unshakable commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. So while the United States increased its carbon emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels, the European Union countries reduced theirs by 2 percent. Not stellar, but clearly a case where the EU's breakup with the United States carried tangible benefits for the planet.
Flash forward to the high-stakes climate negotiations that just wrapped up in Bangkok. The talks were supposed to lead to a deal in Copenhagen this December that significantly strengthens the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, the United States, the EU and the rest of the developed countries formed a unified bloc calling for Kyoto to be scrapped and replaced. Where Kyoto set clear and binding targets for emission reductions, the US plan would have each country decide how much to cut, then submit its plans to international monitoring (with nothing but wishful thinking to ensure that this all keeps the planet's temperature below catastrophic levels). And where Kyoto put the burden of responsibility squarely on the rich countries that created the climate crisis, the new plan treats all countries the same.
These kinds of weak proposals were not altogether surprising coming from the United States. What was shocking was the sudden unity of the rich world around this plan--including many countries that had previously sung the praises of Kyoto. And there were more betrayals: the EU, which had indicated it would spend $19 billion to $35 billion a year to help developing countries adapt to climate change, came to Bangkok with a much lower offer, one more in line with the US pledge of... nothing. Oxfam's Antonio Hill summed up the negotiations like this: "When the starting gun fired, it became a race to the bottom, with rich countries weakening existing commitments under the international framework."
This isn't the first time a much-celebrated return to the negotiating table has resulted in overturned tables, with hard-won international laws and conventions scattered on the floor. The United States played a similar role at the UN conference on racism in Geneva in April. After extracting all sorts of deletions from the negotiating text--no references to Israel or the Palestinians, nothing on slavery reparations, etc.--the Obama administration decided to boycott anyway, pointing to the fact that the new text "re- affirms" the document adopted in 2001 in Durban, South Africa.
It was a flimsy excuse, but there was some kind of logic to it, since the United States had never signed the original 2001 document. What made no sense was the wave of copycat withdrawals from around the rich world. Within forty-eight hours of the US announcement Italy, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland had pulled out. Unlike the United States, these governments had all signed the 2001 declaration, so they had no reason to object to a document that reaffirmed it. It didn't matter. As with the climate change negotiations, lining up behind Obama, with his impeccable reputation, was an easy way to avoid burdensome international obligations and look progressive at the same time--a service the United States was never able to provide during the Bush years.
The United States has had a similarly corrupting influence as a new member of the UN Human Rights Council. Its first big test was Judge Richard Goldstone's courageous report on Israel's Gaza onslaught, which found that war crimes had been committed by both the Israeli army and Hamas. Rather than prove its commitment to international law, the United States used its clout to smear the report as "deeply flawed" and to strong-arm the Palestinian Authority into withdrawing a supportive resolution. (The PA, which faced a furious backlash at home for caving in to US pressure, may introduce a new version.)
And then there are the G-20 summits, Obama's highest-profile multilateral engagements. When one was held in London in April, it seemed for a moment that there might be some kind of coordinated attempt to rein in transnational financial speculators and tax dodgers. Sarkozy even pledged to walk out of the summit if it failed to produce serious regulatory commitments. But the Obama administration had no interest in genuine multilateralism, advocating instead for countries to come up with their own plans (or not) and hope for the best--much like its reckless climate-change plan. Sarkozy, needless to say, did not walk anywhere but to the photo session to have his picture taken with Obama.
Of course, Obama has made some good moves on the world stage--not siding with the coup government in Honduras, supporting a UN Women's Agency... But a clear pattern has emerged: in areas where other wealthy nations were teetering between principled action and negligence, US interventions have tilted them toward negligence. If this is the new era of multilateralism, it is no prize.
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