FRANCE has summoned the US ambassador to protest over claims of large-scale spying on French citizens by the US National Security Agency (NSA).
Allegations by Le Monde newspaper that the agency was collecting tens of thousands of French telephone records risked turning into a diplomatic row just as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris for the start of a European tour about Syria.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said: "I have immediately summoned the US ambassador."
Earlier, France's interior minister, Manuel Valls, said the revelations 70.3 million pieces of French telephone data were recorded by the NSA were "shocking".
He added: "If an allied country spies on France or spies on other European countries, that's totally unacceptable."
US Ambassador to France Charles Rivkin declined immediate comment on being summoned by the French foreign ministry but stressed US-French ties were close.
In July, Paris prosecutors opened a preliminary inquiries into the NSA's programme after allegations of wide-scale spying by the agency were leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article