Russia wants France to be seen as both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic. And to ensure that French society tears itself apart, the Kremlin has decided to try to stoke hatred between the Jewish and Muslim communities by targeting each of them in turn.
Evidence of this strategy came to light when a French intelligence service recently obtained internal Kremlin documents. According to a summary, seen by Mediapart, these show how “[Russia's] presidential office is striving to heighten tensions between these two communities on [French] territory by exploiting divisive debates to sow division in French society and weaken national solidarity”.
Mediapart understands that the same French intelligence service learnt, for instance, that the desecration of Jewish cultural and memorial sites in France in May 2025 was “directly signed off by the Russian presidential office”.
Back in the spring French intelligence services were already warning in a confidential report handed to Parliament that the “psychological and information war” waged by Russia was aimed at “dividing public opinion by stirring tensions within the population”. According to the secret services' report, this was being done particularly in relation to the “conflict between Israel and Hamas”.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
In reports filed in a court case in 2024 and revealed by Mediapart, the French domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, also warned that France was a “favoured target for the Kremlin” and that in order to destabilise states “seen as enemies”, the Russian secret services identify “existing weak spots such as political or inter-community divisions”, which they exploit to “disorient people”. The French counter-espionage service noted that there are “identifiable patterns” in the issues chosen for these Russian interference operations. These are “predominantly” themes linked to immigration, Islam, anti-Semitism, United States hegemony, and major institutions (European Union, NATO), among others.
Green paint and pigs’ heads
After October 7th, Russia’s initial aim to focus its efforts on the genocidal war waged by Israel in Gaza was shown through destabilisation operations that were aimed solely at the Jewish community.
Three weeks after the attack carried out by Hamas in Israel, more than 250 Stars of David were sprayed on the walls of several buildings in the Paris region. In May 2024, two weeks after some students at Sciences Po university in Paris had daubed their hands red during pro-Palestine protests - a symbol that sparked a row because it recalled the killing of two Israeli soldiers in October 2000, at the start of the second Intifada - 35 red hands were painted on the Shoah Memorial in Paris, over the plaques listing the names of those who saved Jews during World War 2.
Then the approach was to attack two religious communities, increasing the odds of strife in mainland France. This new destabilisation strategy was first applied in practice between May and September 2025.
First came the “green paint” attacks. On the night of May 30th 2025 synagogues, a restaurant and - once again - the Shoah Memorial were vandalised when masked men sprayed walls with green paint. Three Serbian nationals were later detained in Antibes in the south of France as they tried to leave the country. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office they were identified thanks to CCTV footage and phone records.
The second phase of the operation came three months later. On the night of September 8th 2025, around 10 pigs’ heads - some of them with the word “MACRON” daubed on them in blue paint - were dumped outside nine Muslim places of worship in the Paris region. The following day the Paris prosecutor’s office denounced what it called a “clear desire to stir disorder within the country”.
A Serb on Moscow’s payroll
The first findings of the subsequent criminal investigation show that two men had bought ten pigs’ heads from a pig farmer in Normandy a few hours before the incident took place. Once their grim task was completed, these men had slipped across the French-Belgian border in a car with Serbian number plates.
Le Monde has since revealed that one man ran both operations remotely. According to information seen by Mediapart, this man is a Serb named Aleksandar Savic, already known to intelligence services for being an agent on Russia’s payroll. In an email dated August 27th, Savic had pre-ordered the pigs’ heads that his associates used two weeks later.
France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, already had Aleksandar Savic on its radar for having transmitted via encrypted messaging apps - Telegram, Viber and Zangi - the addresses of the Jewish memorial and cultural sites in Paris that were to be sprayed with green paint. These messages had been sent to the three Serbian nationals later arrested in Antibes. During a surveillance operation, a European intelligence service also spotted Aleksandar Savic with two of the three Serbs a few weeks before the attacks took place.
According to Mediapart's information, Savic’s involvement in these two attempts at destabilisation attempts, which targeted the Jewish and Muslim communities in turn, has helped convince the DGSI that they were run by Russia. One reason for this is that the role played by the cell leader, who never set foot in France but handled the logistics, mirrors that of the Bulgarian Nikolay Ivanov, who has just been sentenced to four years in prison for funding the travel and accommodation in Paris of three other Bulgarians who sprayed red hands on the Shoah Memorial.
Three weeks after the pigs’ heads were left at the mosques, the Serbian interior minister issued a statement announcing the arrest of 11 Serbs suspected of having taken part in several operations in France and Germany aimed at spreading “ideas advocating and inciting hatred, discrimination and violence based on differences”. These included the green paint and the pigs’ heads incidents. When contacted, the Paris prosecutor’s office said these men had not been arrested at France’s request.
However, the man suspected of having coordinated these operations, Aleksandar Savic, is “currently on the run”. He is thought to have acted “on the instructions of a foreign intelligence service”, according to the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, which did not specify which country's service it was referring to.
Aleksandar Savic's current whereabouts is unclear. What is known is that his opposite number in the red hands case, Nikolay Ivanov, fled his native country of Bulgaria after the desecration of the Shoah Memorial. As Mediapart has revealed, he went first to Moscow and then took refuge in Croatia, where he was finally arrested.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter