France Summons U.S. Envoy on NSA Spying Report in Le Monde

The French government expressed outrage at a report that the U.S. National Security Agency eavesdropped on millions of phone calls inside France and demanded that the U.S. halt the spying.

The Foreign Ministry in Paris summoned the U.S. ambassador after Le Monde, using documents disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, reported that the U.S. intercepted and recorded 70.3 million bits of “telecommunications data” between Dec. 10, 2012, and Jan. 8, 2013.

“This type of practice between partners that intrudes on the private sphere is totally unacceptable,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Luxembourg today. “We have to see to it very quickly that this practice ceases.”

Allegations based on data provided by Snowden, who was granted asylum by Russia as he faces espionage charges in the U.S., have stirred tensions between the U.S. and countries including Germany and Brazil. Mexico’s government condemned the alleged hacking of the e-mail account of then-President Felipe Calderon in 2010, saying such actions are unacceptable and violate international law.

The U.S. embassy in Paris declined to comment through a spokesman that the ambassador, Charles Rivkin, was called in to the French foreign ministry.

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