A covert Russian network sought to exploit last month’s riots in France by using social media to blame the unrest on uncontrolled immigration and portray authorities as having lost control of the situation, according to an internal European Union (EU) assessment seen by Reuters.
A separate internal assessment by the French Foreign Ministry … found that social media accounts linked to Israel and the US MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement were also spreading “hostile narratives” about the riots, linking them to radical Islamism and migration.
Taken together, these assessments provide insight into how external actors have attempted to exploit internal unrest in France to further their own political goals, according to an analysis by European disinformation experts.
An EU analysis found that a covert Russian network known as “Operation Overload” was spreading videos falsely posing as Western media content, targeting French audiences. Some of them falsely claimed that migrants were raping protesters or that terrorist attacks were imminent.
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The EU analysis, covering the period from October 7 to 21, found that Russia sought to “portray the French leadership as weak and increasingly authoritarian.”
“Such events provide an opportunity to undermine national governments, incite fear and division, and shape public perceptions ahead of elections,” said the EU document with limited distribution, prepared by disinformation experts in the Union’s diplomatic service.
The analysis found no evidence that Moscow or other actors incited the protests or contributed to their escalation, but described their activities as “opportunistic exploitation of the unrest.”
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An estimate by the French Foreign Ministry showed that the ten most viewed posts on the X network about the unrest, originating from “pro-Russian circles”, generated 2,8 million views from October 16 to 18.
However, those numbers were significantly lower than the number of views of posts about the riots spread by accounts associated with the MAGA movement, as well as Israeli officials and influencers.
The ten most viewed posts about the unrest in France, posted on X by officials, media outlets and influencers linked to the MAGA movement, generated more than 49 million views from October 16 to 18, according to a report by the French ministry.
The ten most viewed posts by Israeli officials, government accounts, media outlets and influencers generated more than 35 million views in the same period, according to the French report.
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The EU report states that “Operation Overload”, active since September 2023, is directed against Western “public figures, institutions and media”, with the aim of “discrediting these actors and their support for Ukraine, while promoting content aligned with Russian interests”.
The network’s activities “also aimed to undermine European support for Ukraine by claiming that European governments were prioritizing Ukraine over domestic problems,” the report said.
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The French counter-disinformation agency Viginum published a detailed report in 2024 on “Operation Overload” and similar Russian operations, and French officials have stated that they are reactivated during protests, elections, or other occasions that can serve to discredit France.
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Everyone’s focused on the Russian boogeyman, but the article’s own numbers tell a different story: pro-Russian posts hit 2.8 million views — while MAGA-linked accounts pulled 49 million and Israeli officials/influencers 35 million. By the EU’s and France’s own reporting, American and Israeli actors out-amplified Russia by more than 15 to 1. Yet somehow only Russia gets the headline and the EU report. The French Foreign Ministry itself flagged MAGA and Israeli accounts as spreading “hostile narratives” — linking the riots to radical Islamism and migration — and those narratives reached vastly more people than anything Moscow produced.
There are two different studies, one on Russia and the other on US/Israel. The numbers aren’t comparable as they may relate to different time spans, platforms, etc.
Also, that Russia has a lower reach in this one study is meaningless. The malign intention is the same, and it doesn’t even necessarily mean that there were fewer negative consequences.
Time to lock down the internet. Bad neighbours make us build tall fences.
Those disinformation networks? Mostly just your mainstream media owned by billionaires.
It’s that what they always do?
A covert Russian network sought to exploit last month’s riots in France by using social media to blame the unrest on uncontrolled immigration […]
[…] found that Russia sought to “portray the French leadership as weak and increasingly authoritarian.”The main problem is that half of it is in fact true, because French political parties and government happily parroted the criminal immigration tales to justify more authoritarian measures against protests.
As long as governments (and that is by far not a French problem, but persistent everywhere in the EU) still delusionally think that they just need to copy the far-right’s anti-immigration and culture war screaming to get some of their voters back, we are still on a straight march towards far-right (and worse) governments. And guess who finances those?
