France is being “pounded” by Russian disinformation that could distort the result of the upcoming EU parliamentary elections, France’s minister for Europe has said, reports The Guardian.
Jean-Noël Barrot said in an interview with Ouest-France that Russian propaganda was being disseminated across social media platforms on a weekly basis.
“We are being pounded by the propaganda of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its communication corridors,” he said. “Not a week goes by without France being the target of coordinated and deliberate manoeuvres to disrupt public debate and interfere in the campaign for the European elections.”
He cited several examples, including the launch of a fake French ministry of defence website claiming that 200,000 French people were being called up to fight in Ukraine. A link to the site was posted on X at the end of March.
“The site is a fake government site and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign,” the French defence ministry said at the time.
These “doppleganger” sites, identified as one of several forms of Russian disinformation, involve the creation of websites that look identical to bona fide and authoritative sources, such as government or mainstream media sites.