French Prez Emmanuel Macron Potential Pegasus Spyware Target; Office Says ‘Its Very Serious’

Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron and his close associates were possible targets of the Pegasus Spyware. This information was provided by the head of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based media nonprofit, that leaked the story.

“We found these numbers but we obviously couldn’t do a technical analysis of Emmanuel Macron’s phone,” said Laurent Richard (head of Forbidden Stories) to LCI television, “But it shows, in any case, there was an interest in doing it,” he added. (as reported by NDTV)

Macron has joined an elite list of international leaders which include, The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, Saad Hariri, who resigned as prime minister of Lebanon last week, Charles Michel, the president of the European Council and ex-PM of Belgium, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Saadeddine Othmani, Morocco’s prime minister, Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, and Felipe Calderón of Mexico, the former president.

The French government has reacted to the news by calling it “very serious”. “If this is proven, it is clearly very serious. All light will be shed on these media revelations,” a spokesman for Macron’s office said.

The Guardian and The Washington Post claimed that many governments of the world including the Indian government, are spying on eminent personalities through a special software named Pegasus which is sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO to the governments of various countries.

Reports on ‘Pegasus Project’ have alleged that over 40 journalists, 3 prominent opposition leaders, 1 constitutional authority, 2 serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, current and former heads and officials of security organizations, and a large number of businessmen were part of the list of potential or past victims of the Pegasus project.