Nicolas Sarkozy

President Barack Obama on June 24 moved to defuse tensions after revelations of US spying on three French presidents angered France, while WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called for legal action over Washington's snooping and promised more disclosures to come.

WikiLeaks announced in a press statement on Tuesday, that the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on the last three French Presidents - Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande.

WikiLeaks referred to top secret intelligence reports and technical documents on the communications of high-level French officials over the past ten years.

The US is not targeting French leader Francois Hollande's communications and will not do so in the future, the White House said, after documents published by WikiLeaks showed Washington had wiretapped the president and his two predecessors.

French President Francois Hollande had called a secret meeting of his cabinet as early as May 22, 2012, to discuss a possible Greek exit from the eurozone said Wikileaks on Tuesday citing secret intelligence information from the U.S. National Security Agency.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy spoke before a German businessman panel in Berlin and supported the idea of supporting Greece through Europe. He, however, also stated that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is not meeting expectations.

“We are back to zero”, he added, supporting former Greek PM Antonis Samaras who “gave a boost to Greek growth and began reforms”.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced that his UMP party will change its name and will be called “Les Républicains” (The Republicans). Sarkozy aims to change the image of his party and prepare for national elections in 2017.

Friday was “clash of the referenda” day, as former French president Nicolas Sarkozy first tweeted his support for such a referendum by the embattled Greek government — only to be quickly followed by a “tongue-in-cheek” response by former Greek PM George Papandreou.

A French court ruled May 7 that secret wiretap recordings of former president Nicolas Sarkozy talking with his lawyer could be used as evidence in an ongoing corruption probe, one of his legal team confirmed.
 

''You are the most surviving Bulgarian politician,'' stated former French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a news conference following his meeting with his Bulgarian counterpart Boiko Borisov. ''I applaude you for your effors and for the fact that you managed to create a working government. You have no losses, you only have victories.''

Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for Popular Movement (UMP) party proved to be the big winner at the second round of France's local elections.

Paris and Lyon, France's two biggest cities have been excluded from the vote on Sunday.