‘Russia is trying to manipulate influencers in France’, warns Jean-Noël Barrot, during a hearing at the Assembly | LCP

“We have evidence that confirms that Russia is attempting to manipulate influencers in [des] European countries, including France”declared the resigning Minister of Foreign Affairs during a hearing in the Assembly on Wednesday, December 18. “Investigations are underway“, specified Jean-Noël Barrot, while operations of this type took place in particular in Romania.

After Romania and Moldova, France. There Russia attempts to manipulate influencers in several European countriesto have you Minister of Foreign Affairs of the resigned government, Jean-Noël Barrotduring a hearing at the National Assembly, Wednesday December 18. “France is targeted by several types of foreign digital interference“he said, adding that the Russia was attackingregularly” to the supporters of Ukraine.

“We call on content creators, like their subscribers, to be extremely vigilant regarding these threats which weigh on our public debate“declared the minister, indicating that an investigation was underway. This attempt at destabilization takes place in a European context against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. “The recent elections in Moldova and Romania illustrated the massive use of influencers on social networks and in particular on TikTok to disrupt the vote“, indicated Jean-Noël Barrot. In Romania, in particular, the first round of the presidential election was canceled by the Constitutional Court at the beginning of December, due to suspicions of interference on the part of Moscow.

Citing a source within the French intelligence services, The World reports that approximately 2,000 European influencers were approached by the Kremlin to disseminate Russian power propaganda for remuneration. Around twenty of them, including nine French people, would have accepted the deal. One of them, identified by the daily, has more than 6 million subscribers. THE incriminated videos use common elements of language from Russia : in this case, “the power of Vladimir Putin’s army and the risk of world war in case of involvement in the conflict of Ukraine’s allies“, specifies The Worldwithout it being possible, at this stage, to know whether the influencers concerned were manipulated or whether they knowingly disseminated propaganda content.