It’s not new, but it still sends shivers down your spine. Russian propaganda is indeed present on French soil, but also on European soil, alerted the French Minister for Europe Jean-Noël Barrot, in an interview on Saturday on the website of the daily Ouest-France. “We are being bombarded by the propaganda of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its transmission belts,” worries Jean-Noël Barrot in this interview.
“Not a week goes by without France being the target of coordinated and deliberate maneuvers to disrupt public debate and interfere in the campaign for the European elections,” he adds. Several recent cases are cited: “the hijacking of the website of the Ministry of the Armed Forces for a fictitious call for 200,000 men to go and fight in Ukraine” or “that of the Ministry of the Interior for the fictitious announcement of a tightening of conditions of reception of Ukrainian refugees. He also mentions fake news campaigns on the resumption of tuberculosis in France or an “alleged wave of cancellation of hotel nights due to the security context”.
A risk of intensification of disinformation campaigns
Asked about the possibility of these campaigns influencing the results of the election, Jean-Noël Barrot believes that “the risk is proven” and recalls that France, Germany and Poland have agreed on a coordinated alert mechanism “to stand together” . Brussels regularly warns of the risks of an intensification of disinformation campaigns from Russia in the run-up to the European elections, aimed at influencing the results of the vote and weakening Western support for Ukraine in the war launched by Moscow .
At the end of March, Prague revealed the discovery by Czech intelligence services of a network orchestrated by Moscow which spread pro-Russian propaganda about Ukraine via the Voice of Europe website. Belgium then reported that, according to its services, MEPs “had received money” in this context to relay messages from Russia. The case led Belgian justice to open an investigation.