France summons US envoy over NSA spying report

Eurasia News

PARIS: France on Monday summoned the US ambassador Charles Hammerman Rivkin and sought explanation over media reports that the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on millions of French telephone calls, Dispatch News Desk reported.

In a recent report based on documents leaked by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden and published by the French daily Le Monde, it was revealed that US spy agency secretly taped 70.3 million phone calls in France in just 30 days between December 10 last year and January 8, 2013.

The report said that the NSA automatically monitored communications from certain phone numbers in France and recorded text messages.

The NSA also targeted certain high-profile French political and business individuals.