GP is right and I'm not sure how'd that work for France... The US had more than 50% the GDP per capita France has and the US has 5x the population.
That's kinda the whole point: the US is still the world's 1st power (a place France lost after losing the Waterloo battle, basically) and nobody has as much spying power as the US do (China probably come close).
A country with 1/10th the GDP of another country cannot be spying "just as much".
P.S: and let's not forget that France is exactly nowhere when it comes to tech, with the biggest players like Dassault and Thales being irrelevant tiny players compared to the american behemots. In the top 100 companies by market cap in the world the four french ones are... Hermes, Dior, LVMH, etc. I don't think these exactly help spying.
P.P.S: I can see I'm downvoted by french "cocorico" readers ; )
Correlating espionage to GDP/economy is probably the most uneducated take on the matter.
Smaller countries tend to have massively outsided foreign espionage apparatus - see Japanese industrial espionage in the 1980’s, the French playing silly buggers globally, the Chinese basically boosting their entire economy off the back of intelligence collection, etc.
I mean you seem to be simply reducing spying to the GPD, when it varies very much with the policies of a country. Israel is 27th by GDP but is a world leader in espionage, and especially in surveillance tools. Similarly France is good enough at spying that it got offered to join the 5 eyes (it did not work out because France asked the mutual non-spying clause to be applied, which the US refused).
So while it is probable that the US has a bigger spying industry, it's also hasty to dismiss another player by saying "lol 10% of GDP"
> Hermes, Dior, LVMH, etc. I don't think these exactly help spying
Well France carried spying activities in Syria through Lafarge. Sometimes all you need is a foothold into the good places (Syria, or, for L'Oréal, rich circles)
And US has military bases in EU which is super convenient for listening stations and spy centers. Back in the Cold War the US held even a heavier hand in EU.
That's kinda the whole point: the US is still the world's 1st power (a place France lost after losing the Waterloo battle, basically) and nobody has as much spying power as the US do (China probably come close).
A country with 1/10th the GDP of another country cannot be spying "just as much".
P.S: and let's not forget that France is exactly nowhere when it comes to tech, with the biggest players like Dassault and Thales being irrelevant tiny players compared to the american behemots. In the top 100 companies by market cap in the world the four french ones are... Hermes, Dior, LVMH, etc. I don't think these exactly help spying.
P.P.S: I can see I'm downvoted by french "cocorico" readers ; )