This article was originally publsihed on December 8, 2016.

French technologists almost all know his nickname: “Oles,” which appears in a list of a British intelligence agency targets, originally given by the former NSA operative to Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras and seen by Le Monde in collaboration with The Intercept. “Oles” real name is Octave Klaba, the founder of the French company OVH, Europe’s largest Internet hosting company. His email address is listed in a document from the GCHQ along other “selectors,” people considered as targets by the Five Eyes intelligence agencies.

On May 28, 2009, in a test aimed at knowing whether the intercept of a satellite liaison between Sierra Leone and Belgium was technically possible, British agents obtained a list of interesting email address which appeared in the intercepted flow of data. Among ambassadors and politicians stood the CEO of OVH, a company that was growing fast.

The presence of this email address does not show the content of emails sent and received by M. Klaba have been intercepted by British or American intelligence services; But it reveals that OVH CEO was considered a target and that his communication metadata was stored by the GCHQ.

Reasons for surveillance unclear

Why has Mr. Klaba been targeted? Snowden documents revealed in the past that the NSA was interested in French companies such as Alcatel or Wanadoo. In 2009, O