Founder of French smart card giant reveals U.S. hegemony in tech sector

(Xinhua) 08:27, September 24, 2021

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-- As a key founder of French smart card producer Gemplus, Marc Lassus's startling revelation in his new book has sparked a worldwide outcry against the American coercion in economic and technological sectors.

-- The United States not only usurped Gemplus' leading position in the industry, but also made best of the high-tech unicorn's smart cards to collect information and eavesdrop the rest of the world.

-- The Gemplus affair was just one historical scene in which the United States used its national power to steal information by all possible means. For decades, the country, relying on its technological superiority, has been addicted to peeping and wiretapping on ordinary people, their competitors and even their allies.

BEIJING, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- In his new book The Chip Trap, Marc Lassus, key founder of French smart card producer Gemplus, has chosen to speak out and reveal how the U.S. security services persecuted him and seized control of his tech firm.

The startling revelation has sparked a worldwide outcry against the American coercion in economic and technological sectors.

The book, which came after The American Trap: My Battle to Expose America's Secret Economic War against the Rest of the World written by Frederic Pierucci, a former senior manager for French energy and transport conglomerate Alstom, serves as yet another testimony to America's dark history of handicapping tech companies of other countries by hook or by crook to make ill-gotten selfish gains.

U.S. MANIPULATIONS

Gemplus, founded in 1988, used to be a world's leading provider of smart card-based solutions. Running production plants and research and development centers in 37 countries and regions worldwide, the company had led the world production of smart cards by the end of 2000, taking a more than 40 percent share of the world market.

As the company grew, what co-founder Lassus did not expect was that the U.S. security services had been on its tail and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had already sent an investment group to sneakily seize absolute control of Gemplus.

"It was when I started my company that I began having problems with the Americans. They wrote a big check, they put in 550 million euros (643 million U.S. dollars) to take 26 percent shares of the company," Lassus told Xinhua via a recent video interview.

"But what I did not know was the first shareholders at that time, who were allies for me since they had gone up in the capital -- they had 20 percent, I had 19 percent and we were working hand in hand. And all of a sudden, what we see was that they were completely at the service of the Americans, of the CIA," he recalled.