Macron, in the crosshairs of the Pegasus spy program contracted by Morocco

Macron, during an official act last Monday in Paris.LUDOVIC MARIN / POOL / EFE

A mobile phone of French President Emmanuel Macron is among the possible targets of the spying of Morocco, a close ally of France, as revealed on Tuesday by the consortium of journalists Forbidden Stories and the non-governmental organization Amnesty International. It is not proven that Macron's mobile ended up being spied on by Moroccan services. But his number is on the list of more than 50,000 phones potentially infected by the Pegasus program, from the Israeli company NSO Group, which allows states that acquire it to capture calls, messages, contacts and photographs of the attacked devices, and even activate the microphone and the camera.

In addition to Macron, 13 heads of state and government appear on the list, including the King of Morocco himself, Mohammed VI, according to

, one of the newspapers that has published the revelations.

On the list are the presidents of Iraq, Barham Salih, and of South Africa, Cyiril Ramaphosa, and the Pakistani prime ministers, Imran Khan;

Egyptian, Mosfafá Madbouly, and Moroccan, Saadedín el Otmani.

Also several former prime ministers - among them, the French, Édouard Philippe - and 14 ministers from France, according to

.

This does not mean, nor is there evidence, that all of their phones were hacked, but it does mean that they were at least selected as candidates to be.

More information

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• A Mexican journalist murdered in 2017 was previously spied on by the Pegasus 'software'

In the French case,

and Radio France point to the Moroccan services as the origin of the attempt to spy on their head of state.

"If the facts are proven, they are obviously very serious," assumes a source from the Elysee Palace, seat of the French presidency, who demanded anonymity.

"All the light will be shed on these press disclosures," added the source.

Since the first revelations about the alleged use of Pegasus by Morocco against French journalists were published on Sunday, Paris has avoided criticizing Rabat and has conditioned its reaction to the factual demonstration of the revelations.

The Moroccan list covers 10,000 of the 50,000 devices that could be the target of espionage. Among them is a mobile attributed to King Mohamed VI, as revealed by Radio France

And another phone number that corresponds to Salma Bennani, mother of her two children, from whom she separated in 2018. Also noteworthy is the case of the monarch's cousin, Prince Moulay Hicham, who has openly criticized the monarch, with whom he had bitter disagreements ago years. In the Moroccan list, not only his phone number appears, but that of his wife and two daughters.

Radio France station has asked two questions about the possible reason that the king's number is on the Moroccan list of possible targets for the Pegasus program. Has the king authorized the control of his surroundings, including his own number, in an atmosphere of general suspicion? Or is it that the head of the police and the secret services of the interior, Abdelatif Hamuchi, has given himself powers that go beyond his powers? "Impossible to answer that question," concludes the station.

Le Monde

revealed that the Moroccan list of possible targets for spying with the Pegasus program between 2017 and 2019 includes 6,000 numbers related to Algeria. There appear those of a good part of the political and military leadership, heads of secret services and foreign diplomats. The French media that have published these news specify that Morocco placed one of Macron's mobiles on the target in March 2019, during the protests that led the Algerian president, Abdelaziz Buteflika, to resign his fifth presidential term.

Rabat, France's privileged partner in the Maghreb, has never stopped observing with a magnifying glass the relationship between Paris and Algiers, marked by the traumatic war of independence (1954-1962) and the presence of millions of citizens of Algerian origin in France. In a statement quoted by

, the NSO company states that Macron "has never been a target and has never been targeted by NSO clients." Morocco has always denied having contracted the Pegasus program.

The Moroccan secret services made a show of extraordinary efficiency last April when they discovered and leaked that the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Gali, had flown from Algeria to Spain and had been admitted to a hospital in Logroño with a false identity. It was never known how Rabat obtained that information. And at the time no one mentioned the Pegasus program. But Amnesty International had already accused Morocco in June 2020 of using it to spy on Moroccan journalist critical of power Omar Radi. Finally, Radi has been sentenced this Monday by the Court of Appeal of Casablanca to six years in prison, accused of rape and ... espionage.