Members of the new French cabinet have been told to stop using their BlackBerries because of fears that the US could intercept state secrets.
The French ban, however, is a matter of security rather than one of politeness or the dignity of government. The servers which BlackBerries rely on are located outside France, in the UK and America.
The Secretariat Général de la Défense Nationale (SGDN), the French security agency, says the BlackBerry is "a problem of data security." The French Cabinet and staffs have been barred from using the popular handheld.
The Financial Times says the French foreign service got rid of its BlackBerries some time ago, but that other ministries had ignored guidance and were still using them.