France is “being overwhelmed with propaganda and disinformation” ahead of the EU election, French minister for European affairs Jean-Noël Barrot warned Tuesday.
The country’s security authorities are facing waves of disinformation ahead of the European election in June, Barrot told POLITICO’s Tech & AI Summit. He said traditional media and official ministry websites were being spoofed to trick people into believing disinformation, and fake accounts were ramping up activity on social media.
“In the past six weeks, there [has] not been one week without a coordinated disinformation campaign affecting France,” he added.
The French foreign-disinformation watchdog Viginum in February said it had detected a planned disinformation campaign in France, Germany and Poland tied to the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the upcoming EU election in June, which it called “Portal Kombat.” Last June, authorities uncovered another wide-ranging Russian disinformation campaign dubbed Doppelganger to undermine Western support to Ukraine.
In March, Czech authorities also imposed sanctions on the Prague-based website Voice of Europe over claims that it was spreading Kremlin propaganda, including by using the influence of mostly far-right, pro-Russian European Parliament members that had engaged with the outlet. Two of the channel’s executives — including Viktor Medvedchuk, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — were hit with sanctions.
Social media companies Meta, Google and others took down Voice of Europe’s channels in recent weeks, but the network is still active on X and Telegram. It also managed to get its website back up and running in previous days.
The European Commission’s Vice President in charge of media and disinformation, Věra Jourová, told POLITICO’s Tech & AI Summit that the channel could face a review by EU authorities to impose EU-wide sanctions, after which national governments would be responsible for taking and keeping down Voice of Europe’s platforms.
This article has been updated to clarify Barrot’s comments.
