PARIS: France briefly considered acquiring the controversial Israeli-made Pegasus spyware from mid-2019 during a period when Morocco was trying to use it to spy on French ministers, a journalistic investigation said Thursday.
An investigation by a consortium of media led by Forbidden Stories first alleged in 2021 that Morocco had deployed the malware, developed by Israeli firm NSO Group, to monitor prominent French political figures, including President Emmanuel Macron.
In a new series of articles published on Thursday, the consortium, including Le Monde newspaper, said email traces that Morocco used to spy on domestic political opponents had also been found on the phone of French ministers, including current Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu.
He had been targeted from July 2019 when he was minister for France’s local authorities, Forbidden Stories said.
France’s foreign intelligence agency told French investigators looking into the 2021 report that Morocco had been using NSO since at least 2017, it said.
