DGSE accordingly intercepts signals from telephones and computers, from France to other countries tracking “who is talking to whom.” Like the NSA, it also does not record the real time convo or email content, it uses metadata.

The activity is still illegal, said Le Monde. Metadata is enough to have an idea who are you talking to, what anyone is doing, what they are gonna do and so on.
The daily newspaper added that, it is the reason why the French Government remains silent regarding the US, spying its citizens.