The Israeli Minister of Defense was in Paris on Wednesday on a mine clearance operation.

Benny Gantz assured his French counterpart Florence Parly that his country took allegations of espionage concerning Israeli software Pegasus "seriously".

It was the first meeting between the Israeli Minister of Defense and his French counterpart since 2013, said the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

Benny Gantz "brought up the subject NSO (Israeli cybersecurity company that designed Pegasus) and said Israel takes the allegations seriously," the Israeli Defense Ministry confirmed. "He stressed that the State of Israel only gave export authorizations for cyber products to states and only to fight terrorism and crime," the ministry added.

For her part, Florence Parly "indicated to her the clarifications which are now awaited by France, and on which the trust and mutual respect between our two countries depend," said the French Ministry of the Armed Forces.

The minister had already indicated on Tuesday that she wanted to take the opportunity of this long-planned bilateral meeting to find out "what knowledge the Israeli government had of the activities of NSO clients" and how it intended "to prevent a diversion of these highly intrusive tools. ".

NSO denies

Pegasus, which allows infiltration of computer systems, is at the heart of a global spy scandal revealed in mid-July by 17 media outlets. It would have made it possible to spy on the numbers of at least 180 journalists, 85 human rights activists or even 14 heads of state including French President Emmanuel Macron, which NSO denies.

According to the French media

Le Monde

and

Radio France

, numbers of Emmanuel Macron as well as those of former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and 14 members of the government, including the head of diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian, appeared "in the list of numbers selected by a security service of the Moroccan State, user of Pegasus, for potential piracy ”.

"If these facts are proven (...) we will draw all the consequences, but first it must be proven that they are true", argued the spokesman of the French government, Gabriel Attal, stressing that "verifications" were in progress.

Our file on the "Pegasus project"

Regularly accused of playing into the game of authoritarian regimes, NSO assures that its Pegasus software is only used to obtain information on criminal or terrorist networks.

The Israeli Parliament has set up a commission to investigate allegations of "misuse" of Pegasus by some states to spy on public figures.

Benny Gantz thus informed Florence Parly that "official representatives had visited the NSO offices on Wednesday," the Israeli defense ministry said, without giving further details.

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