“Listening” affair in France: Belloubet requests a report on PNF investigations

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Nicole Belloubet requests a report on how the PNF, the national financial prosecutor's office, conducted its investigation into the so-called wiretapping case. The Keeper of the Seals indeed wants to know if the PNF has exceeded its rights by examining the telephone records of a dozen personalities from the world of justice, including lawyers. The PNF then investigated to find out if there was a leak in another investigation he was conducting, implicating Nicolas Sarkozy.

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This could become the second wiretapping affair. In the first, it was the conversations of Nicolas Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog which had been listened to by the investigators in a file of trading in influence. But then, the national financial prosecutor's office, the PNF, in charge of the case, realizes that the two men know that they are being watched; so somebody warned them.

The PNF therefore decided to examine the telephone records of a dozen lawyers and magistrates to find out where the leak came from. Was it legal? The practice in any case caused an uproar when it was revealed by our colleagues from Le Point on Wednesday. Among the lawyers monitored, several tenors of the bar, some of whom have already announced that they want to file a complaint. They believe that the confidentiality of exchanges with their customers is threatened.

The Keeper of the Seals therefore wants to clear this up. Nicole Belloubet thus asked the Attorney General of Paris to give her a report which should answer a main question: in what context did the PNF monitor all of her people?

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