The hypocrisy of French
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius' outrage over U.S. spying allegations is stunning. France's record on espionage is well-known and long-standing. Here are just a few examples:
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Votre Secrets, Monsieur?"AS THE 20TH CENTURY DRAWS TO A CLOSE, a country's economic power has become more essential to its survival than its military prowess. This increased emphasis on market dominance means the world's intelligence services are refocusing their efforts from collecting the traditional political and military material to collecting economic, scientific, technological, and business information. One intelligence service that has become synonymous with this new effort is the French government's General Directorate of External Security (DGSE)."
"The idea of the French using their intelligence service to obtain scientific, economic, and technological information from friendly countries is not new. Returning to power in 1958, President Charles de Gaulle indicated that the Service for External Documentation and Counterespionage (SDECE), the then French intelligence agency, needed to focus on obtaining technological information about the United States and other Western countries."
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WIKILEAKS: France leads Russia, China in Industrial Spying in Europe"Back in 2001, European leaders accused the United States government of operating a vast industrial espionage network that was eavesdropping on European businesses and giving trade secrets to American companies. According to the latest WikiLeaks cable release, they should have been looking internally."
"France is the country that conducts the most industrial espionage on other European countries, even ahead of China and Russia, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, reported in a translation by Agence France Presse of Norwegian daily Aftenposten's reporting."
"French espionage is so widespread that the damages (it causes) the German economy are larger as a whole than those caused by China or Russia," an undated note from the U.S. embassy in Berlin said."
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Next Up for France: Police Keyloggers and Web Censorship"Having just passed its super-controversial Internet "graduated response" law, you might think the French government would take at least a brief break from riling up the "internautes." Instead, the government is prepping a new crime bill that will, among other things, mandate Internet censorship at the ISP level, legalize government spyware, and create a massive meta-database of citizen information called "Pericles."
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And this is just from the ones that I collected while researching and writing my
security guide for business travelers ebook. The public might be outraged, but government officials know better.
