The phones of 5 French ministers and a diplomatic advisor to Macron were hacked
The phones of five French ministers and a diplomatic advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron were targeted by the Israeli hacking program Pegasus, sources told AFP on Friday, confirming a report by the investigative website Mediabar.
The software was spotted by French security services during a phone inspection, and they believe the hack occurred between 2019 and 2020, according to a report released Friday by Mediabar.
The Pegasus program, developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, can operate the smartphone's camera and microphone and obtain its data.
In July, a list of up to 50,000 phone numbers believed to be of people considered by NSO to be of interest since 2016 was leaked.
The media, whose investigations revealed this information, including the "Washington Post", "The Guardian" and "Le Monde", had reported at the time that the leaked list included one of Macron's phone numbers and the numbers of several French ministers.
On Friday, the French authorities did not want to make any comment.
The ministers targeted are Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquet, Minister of Territorial Unity (under the Ministry of the Interior) Jacqueline Gouraud, Minister of Agriculture Julien Donnormandy, Minister of Housing Emmanuel Wargon and Minister of Expatriation Sebastien Locornu, according to Mediabar.
Two French sources familiar with the investigation confirmed the validity of the information contained in the report, on condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak to the media.
On Friday, Wargon said in a statement to the "Lupinion" website, "My phone is among the phones that the National Information Technology Systems Security Agency has checked, but I have not been informed of anything yet about the investigation, so I cannot comment at this stage."
One of her assistants told AFP that "the minister is not authorized to see any of the state's secrets, so we see no point in spying on her."
In July, Le Monde newspaper reported evidence of an attempt to hack the phone of Francois Lerouge, a former environment minister who is close to Macron.
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