Paris: BlackBerry handheld computers, or "Le BlackBerry" as they are known here, have been called addictive, invasive, tiresome for thumbs - and, now, a threat to French secrets.
That, at least, is the fear of French government defence experts, who have advised against their use by officials in France's corridors of power, reportedly to avoid snooping by US intelligence agencies and the loss of commercial and other secrets.
"It's not a question of trust," said French lawmaker Pierre Lasbordes. "We are friends with the Americans, the Anglo-Saxons, but it's economic war."
Le Monde broke the story. It described "BlackBerry withdrawal" among those who have given up their Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). "We feel that we are wasting huge amounts of time, having to relearn how to work in the old way," the daily quoted a ministry office director as saying.
E-mails sent from BlackBerries pass through servers in the United States and Britain, and France fears that makes the system vulnerable to snooping by the National Security Agency, the ears and eyes of US intelligence, Le Monde reported.
Lasbordes, who was commissioned in 2005 by then-Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to look into such issues, said he alerted the government to this "weakness" months ago. He said he met with Research In Motion Limited, which makes BlackBerry devices, to discuss the problem in the course of preparing his report on the security of French information systems.
The Canadian company "admitted that there was a certain fragility in the protection of information when you use the e-mail system" and promised it would be resolved, said Lasbordes, adding: "That was more than a year ago."
BlackBerries pose "a problem with the protection of information" and "the risks of interception are real," Alain Juillet, in charge of economic intelligence for the government, told Le Monde.
The BlackBerry circular from the General Secretariat for National Defence applies in theory to all ministries, and "it's up to everyone to be responsible," Lasbordes said.
Another official in a major ministry who got rid of his BlackBerry following the order said authorities are looking at other types of PDA that they may be able to use instead.
