Anger as US accused of spying on France

Embarrassed by leaked conversations of three successive French presidents and angered by new evidence of uninhibited American spying, France demanded answers from the Obama administration and called for an intelligence “code of conduct” between allies.

France’s foreign minister summoned the US ambassador to respond to the WikiLeaks revelations, as French eyes fixed on the top floor of the US embassy after reports that trompe l’oeil windows there concealed a nest of NSA surveillance equipment just around the corner from the presidential Elysee palace.

“Commitments were made by our American allies. They must be firmly recalled and strictly respected,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said.

French President Francois Hollande spoke by telephone with President Barack Obama and Obama reiterated promises to stop spying tactics considered “unacceptable between allies,” Hollande said.

Obama made a similar pledge after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the agency’s surveillance powers in 2013.

If not a surprise, the revelations put both countries in something of a quandary.

France’s counter-espionage capabilities were called into question at the highest level. The US, meanwhile, was shown not only to be eavesdropping on private conversations of its closest allies but also to be unable to keep its own secrets.

“The rule in espionage — even between allies — is that everything is allowed, as long as it’s not discovered,” Arnaud Danjean, a former analyst for France’s spy agency and an MEP in the European Parliament, told France-Info radio.

“The Americans have been caught with their hand in the jamjar a little too often, and this discredits them,” he said.

The release of the spying revelations appeared to be timed to coincide with a final vote last night in the French parliament on a bill allowing broad new surveillance powers, in particular to counter threats of French extremists linked to foreign jihad.

Hollande, calling the US spying an “unacceptable” security breach, convened two emergency meetings as a result of the disclosures about the NSA’s spying.

The first was with France’s top security officials, the second with leading legislators — many of whom have already voted for the surveillance measure. The documents appear to capture top French officials in Paris between 2006 and 2012 talking candidly about Greece’s economy, relations with Germany, and American spying on allies.

The top floor of the US embassy reportedly was filled with spying equipment hidden behind carefully painted windows, according to the Liberation newspaper.