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Elysee Palace says France will not stand infringement on national security

WikiLeaks earlier leaked materials indicating that US National Security Agency spied on three French presidents by listening to their phones and intercepting their e-mails

© EPA/ETIENNE LAURENT

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PARIS, June 24. /TASS/. France considers that the spying activity of foreign special services is unacceptable and will not bear infringement on its national security, the Elysee Palace said on Wednesday.

"France will not stand any actions endangering its security," the French presidential palace said after the country’s leader Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting of the defence council.

A spokesman for US National Security Council, Ned Price, said in a statement on Tuesday that the US special forces do not intercept phone calls of Hollande.

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, the newspaper 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, according to the report. The last intercepted information was dedicated to secret talks in the Elysee Palace in 2012 about Greece’s possible exit from the euro zone.

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