> Does "We told them it was impossible" count as mitigation?

He said he "got around" something, so that goes in the same direction.

I cannot be sure of anything, but that would be pretty dumb (and discredit them) from the French President's comms techs to just say "that's impossible" while anybody could hack it.

So, the working hypothesis is that, yes, there seem to have been mitigation in place.