Allegedly the major governments participate in a cooperative spying exchange dubbed Five Eyes. Since it's illegal for Country A to spy on their own citizens, they instead have Country B do it and vice-versa. Then participants exchange info in a quid-pro-quo fashion.

5 eyes - US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

France not a member.

the us has enough influence to pressure france into it. why, we’re all friends here! wouldn’t want to “betray” a friend, now would we?

My thoughts exactly, albeit not easily extracted from my comments.