France, which had been complaining about Internet and telephone surveillance conducted by The US and UK, reportedly is conducting similar, interceptions of communications described as “outside the law, and beyond any proper supervision”.

According to the French Le Monde newspaper, the metadata is gobbled up by the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) and stored in a super computer in the spy agency’s headquarters.  The operation targets internal communications and those messages going to outside France’s borders.

“All of our email messages, SMS messages, itemized phone bills and connections to FaceBook and Twitter are then stored for years,” reports LeMonde.

Other French police agencies, including the customs service and anti-money laundering squad are able to delve into this data at will and without civilian accountability.  It is not known if the French surveillance effort goes as far as "Prism", the international surveillance conducted by the Americans and revealed to the world by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The French government has not commented on the Le Monde report.