Spying Leak Called A `Smoke Screen’ Balladur’s Critics Say Disclosure Of Allegations Puts Strain On Already Strained French-U.S. Relations

The disclosure of spying allegations against U.S. diplomats backfired Thursday on Premier Edouard Balladur. His foreign minister said he was “scandalized” by the leak, and political rivals claimed he was trying to divert attention from his troubled presidential campaign.

“It’s a campaign maneuver,” said Philippe Vasseur, a backer of rival conservative candidate Jacques Chirac. “They were trying to create a smoke screen.”

Many critics said the disclosure needlessly damaged French-American relations at a time when the two allies already have many economic and diplomatic differences.

Critics also noted the story was leaked to a newspaper as Balladur’s lead in the presidential race evaporated amid a wiretapping scandal and other woes.

Le Monde newspaper reported Wednesday that five Americans - including four diplomats - have been asked to leave France for allegedly conducting political, military and economic espionage for the CIA. Among them, French officials say, is the CIA station chief.

France’s foreign and interior ministries confirmed the report in a joint statement, but said the information was not intended to be made public.

U.S. officials called the charges unwarranted and expressed amazement that they were made public. The U.S. State Department said Thursday the five would remain in France through their regular tours of duty.

There was strikingly little anti-American rhetoric in France in the aftermath of the disclosures and no noisy calls for the government to ensure the rapid exit of the alleged spies.

Even the likelihood that the five suspects would remain in France roused minimal indignation in a country that has grown accustomed to reports of spying between the two countries.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe agreed with Washington that the allegations should have been handled quietly. He said he was “scandalized” that authoritative details of the case had been leaked to Le Monde.

Chirac, in his first statement on the case, said “quarrels with friends” such as the United States should be handled privately. Juppe, who is backing Chirac in the spring presidential elections, called for an investigation into the leak.

Balladur’s campaign spokesman, Budget Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, said the investigation had begun Wednesday.

The French press suspect the leak came from the Interior Ministry, which controls the counterintelligence agency and has often been at odds with the Foreign Ministry over policy.

Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, one of Balladur’s most powerful allies, is at the center of the scandal over illegal wiretapping approved by the prime minister’s office.

Le Monde, quoting extensively from counterintelligence documents, said the five Americans bribed French officials to procure information, particularly about audiovisual policy and 1993 world trade talks.

On Thursday, the newspaper published accounts from two of three French officials said to have been unwitting victims of the spying. One said he felt the information he provided about global trade negotiations was “without interest.”

France and the United States were at odds during the negotiations, with the Americans pressing in vain to have audiovisual products included in the trade pact.

In an editorial, the newspaper Liberation compared Balladur’s summoning of U.S. Ambassador Pamela Harriman to “the treatment of a Soviet ambassador in the worst moments of the Cold War.”

The editorial said the Foreign Ministry was left with the task of “dealing with a publicly humiliated U.S. administration.”