WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Wednesday, President Barack Obama reassured Hollande in a phone conversation that the United States was not targeting the French President’s communications, the White House said in a press release.
“If Hollande imagined for a minute that he was immune to such eavesdropping then he is demonstrating an alarming degree of naivete. I would be upset if the NSA was not spying on the French and others.”
On Tuesday, WikiLeaks published classified files documenting the NSA had wiretapped the phone conversations of the last three French presidents.
“Heavens, if the French and the Russians and the Germans are not trying to spy on the United States then their tax paying citizens should demand a full refund.”
The US National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson said on Tuesday evening that the United States does not conduct surveillance of foreign leaders or ordinary citizens unless there is a “specific and validated national security purpose.”
US intelligence agencies had wiretapped phone conversations of former French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Hollande between 2006 and 2012, according to the classified files released by WikiLeaks.
In April 2015, a similar espionage scandal erupted when it was discovered that US intelligence had intercepted communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other prominent political and business leaders across the European Union with the assistance of Germany’s federal intelligence agency BND.
