WASHINGTON, June 24. /TASS/. US special forces do not intercept phone calls of French President Francois Hollande, spokesman for US National Security Council Ned Price said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We are not targeting and will not target the communications of President Hollande," Price said. "We do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose," he added.
WikiLeaks earlier leaked materials indicating that US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on three French presidents - Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande - by listening to their phones and intercepting their e-mails.
The Liberation newspaper wrote that the spying was described in five secret reports by NSA based on intercepting data transmitted via communication networks. The reports were made for US surveillance community, Liberation said. Only five documents were later shared with US closest allies - Great Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - in the framework of the Five Eyes program of sharing intelligence.
The operation was conducted from 2006 until May 2012, Liberation wrote. The last intercepted information was dedicated to secret talks in the Elysee Palace in 2012 about Greece’s possible exit from the euro zone.
French President Francois Hollande will hold an emergency meeting with the country’s Security Council devoted to the report published by WikiLeaks later on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse.