In an interview with Sputnik, retired senior officer of the French Intelligence and deputy director of the French Center of Intelligence Studies (CF2R) Alain Rodier commented on the incident.
"Not only Manuel Valls left his cell phone, but also some of his employees…. For a while, these phones were out of sight of the French secret services; at most two or three hours. Given the lightness of our Israeli friends, they might have investigated what these phones contain," Rodier said.
The suspicious cellphones were handed over for inspection to the National Agency for Computer Security (ANSSI), which declined to comment on the possibility that they had been hacked. A government official told the outlet the security check was standard procedure.
Israel responded to the accusations, saying it considered France a friendly nation who it would never spy on. It denied having tampered with the phones of the French delegation.
"Snowden's case showed that our friends and our economic partners have spied on us. What can we say about friendship; in a world where there is an economic war, there is no strong friendship. Today, speaking in military terms, trust does not exclude control, because our economic allies and our partners, such as the United States, have to tap us, but why Israel [would do that] is unclear," the expert said.
According to Jeanne-Beylot, Israel follows the logic of permanent war since the creation of the state of Israel, and this might be the reason behind the desire to obtain as much data as possible.
"Everyone is forced to follow the logic of the information war, which includes reporting on anything as well as spreading relevant information. We have a completely different logic, we see the world through different glasses, we have other paradigms," the expert said.
In his opinion, the incident won't affect the diplomatic relations between France and Israel and is likely to be hushed up.
