French President Francois Hollande arrives for an emergency Eurozone Summit on Greece at the European Council in Brussels, capital of Belgium, June 22, 2015. (Photo: Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)
Will alleged spying against France's leaders and main officials twist a knife in the diplomatic ties linking Paris and Washington? Or, will both allies turn blind eyes to the eventual row to carry out their missions mainly in Iraq and Eastern Europe and honor their commitment overseas?
In a press statement published on Tuesday, WikiLeaks said the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States spied French high-level officials, including French president Francois Hollande, ex-presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, and French cabinet ministers between 2006 and 2012.
According to WikiLeaks, the documents are intelligence summaries of conversations between French government officials concerning some of the most pressing issues facing France and the international community, including a dispute between the French and U.S. governments over U.S. spying on France.
"France will not tolerate actions that threaten its security and the protection of its interests," French President Francois Hollande stressed after holding a defense council "to evaluate the nature" of the revealed reports.
Hollande denounced "unacceptable" the spying, calling on Washington to respect "a code of conduct" that imposed new rules on spying following reports published in 2013 that the United States tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone and snooped on millions of French telephone calls.
Facing the National Assembly, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls asked the United States to repair the damage that the tapping has caused.
"The U.S. must recognize not only the dangers such actions pose to our liberties, but also do everything, and quickly, to repair the damage it causes to the relations between allied countries and between France and the United States," Valls said Wednesday.
