The newspaper "Le Monde" said on Thursday that France monitors millions of phone calls, emails and mobile messages.

The scheme is similar to that made by the National Security Agency of the United States (NSA, in English) with data from American phones and internet around the world, which was revealed by the computer technician Edward Snowden last month.

According to the publication, the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) collected data emitted by computers and telephones French, as well as flows between the country and abroad, for use by antiterrorist services.

As in the American case, the procedures do not focus on the content of communications, but in the "metadata", ie who contacts who. In the case of the Internet, fax and text messages, it is possible to see the contents.

The newspaper says that politicians know the leaks, but keep secret. In French law, there is a vacuum that allows the storage of such data, since there is no regulation or prohibition for this to be done.

No information about espionage abroad. The data are available from a number of French agencies in charge of security, since the customs services to military intelligence, interior, exterior and financial, among others.

As a concrete example of this kind of espionage, the daily cites a case in November 2011, when the president of China Eastern airline found three men who have revised their bags at a hotel in Toulouse.

Individuals, who have dropped "precipitously" room, a computer forgot, master keys and a DVD player. The case was dismissed by the courts.

According to the website WikiLeaks, France is one of the countries with the most efficient spy network in the world.