The phones of several French ministers have been infected with Pegasus spyware

Published on : 09/24/2021 – 17:39

After French President Emmanuel Macron himself, other officials targeted by Pegasus. According to the French site Mediapart, the phones of at least five French ministers and a diplomat attached to the Élysée were infected with spyware. Two sources familiar with the matter also confirmed the information, Friday, September 24, to AFP.

The phones were infected in 2019 and 2020 and showed markers of infection with spyware marketed by Israeli company NSO, during their review by French security services, according to Mediapart.

The ministers concerned are Jean-Michel Blanquer (Education), Jacqueline Gourault (Cohesion of the territories, dependent on the Ministry of the Interior), Julien Denormandie (Agriculture since July 2020, Town and Housing previously), Emmanuelle Wargon (Housing, Ecological transition previously ), Sébastien Lecornu (Overseas).

A diplomat from the diplomatic cell of the Élysée Palace, working with President Emmanuel Macron on international issues, is also concerned.

No official source solicited by AFP has commented on this information, nor has the company NSO, creator of the software. But two sources close to the case who requested anonymity confirmed to AFP the veracity of this information.

“My phone was one of those that were looked at by the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems, I have not yet returned from the investigation so I can not confirm anything at this stage”, Minister Emmanuelle Wargon commented on the site of the newspaper L’Opinion, who said she had changed her phone since the possible infection.

“The minister is not a custodian of state secrets so we do not see the usefulness of having listened to her,” her cabinet also told AFP.

An investigation published from July 18 by a consortium of 17 international media revealed that the Pegasus software, designed by the Israeli company NSO Group, could have spied on the numbers of at least 180 journalists, 600 politicians and politicians. , 85 human rights activists or 65 business leaders from different countries.

This journalistic work is based on a list of 50,000 telephone numbers selected by NSO clients since 2016, obtained by the organization Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International.

Several complaints have been filed in France by people claiming to be victims of the software.

Morocco has, in particular, been accused of having used the software, which Rabat denied, speaking of “false and unfounded allegations” and initiating several legal proceedings in France, Spain and Germany.

The NSO Group for its part declared: “We stand by our previous statements concerning the representatives of the French government. They are not and have never been the targets of the technology of the NSO Group used by its customers (…). We recall that NSO does not exploit its technology “.

With AFP