France has felt victim for years of the Russian hybrid war, which includes everything from typical disinformation actions on social networks to bizarre and crude destabilization operations such as placing empty coffins in front of the Eiffel Tower or pig heads in mosques.
Yesterday it became known that a candidate for the Élysée next year, the former center-right prime minister Édouard Philippe, and another probable candidate, the MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, who leads Public Square, a formation allied with the socialists, have suffered manipulation operations based on fake news. About Philippe, the pro-Russian network Storm-1516 – linked to Moscow’s intelligence services – circulated information about his health completely unrelated to the truth. About Glucksmann, who was from the beginning relentless in condemning the Russian aggression in Ukraine, it was spread, using identity theft methods, that his partner, TV presenter Léa Salamé, tried to corrupt media to give a positive image of her husband. Russian propaganda has also falsified the identity of a well-known investigative journalist, Edwy Plenel, founder of the digital investigative publication Mediapart.
Health rumors were spread about Édouard Philippe and corruption about Raphaël Glucksmann
“We will not let hostile foreign powers steal such a crucial election for the future of France,” said Glucksmann.
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These new Russian interferences have come to light after it was learned that the pro-Putin Russian journalist Xenia Fedorova left France without waiting for the government’s expulsion order against her to be executed. Glucksmann was among those who had accused Fedorova of being a Moscow agent.
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