Russian Interference in French Elections
A recent report by David Chavalarias, CNRS research director at the Center for Analysis and Social Mathematics, has highlighted Russia's interference in the 2024 French legislative elections. The study, part of the broader Politoscope project, reveals that the Kremlin aims to weaken and reverse the Republican front in France. Russia's objective is to destructure French society, provoking a transition towards a closed society or an illiberal democracy. The report also identifies a convergence of interests between the Putin regime and the French far right.
Digital Strategies and On-the-Ground Actions
The Kremlin's interference involves disinformation campaigns on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. For instance, a false recruitment announcement for the French army for Ukraine was circulated to suggest that President Emmanuel Macron was preparing for war against Russia. Targeted political advertisements, paid for by Kremlin-linked actors, exploited current events such as farmers' demonstrations to sow discord. These actions reached tens of millions of users, with less than 20% moderated by Facebook, despite political advertising being banned during election periods.
Additionally, a replica of the Ensemble political group's site was created with a subtly modified URL. This site proposed the purchase of proxies for 100 euros, misleading users into believing in an illegal vote purchase and collecting data on naive supporters before redirecting them to the real site.
The Impact of Russian Interference
Based on the analysis of 700 million messages from 17 million unique users, the CNRS created a social map of the French political landscape on social networks. New digital communities have emerged, including an 'anti-system' group comprising anti-system users and Kremlin-controlled trolls ideologically aligned with the extreme right and rebellious France. This digital force moves across the political spectrum, amplifying opposition to government measures and promoting political polarization.
Concrete actions on the ground have also been reported. The Russian security services (FSB) were accused of orchestrating a Star of David tagging operation on buildings in the Paris region and red hand tags on the Wall of the Righteous in front of the Shoah memorial. These actions are seen as attempts to export the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to France.
Close Contests in Legislative Elections
The first round of the legislative elections showed a clear victory for the National Rally with 29.2% of the votes. However, the results were extremely close in many constituencies. For instance, Emmanuel Grégoire, candidate of the New Popular Front (NFP), won in Paris's 7th constituency with 50.8% of the votes due to an error in submitting 500 ballots. Other NFP candidates in Paris also won by narrow margins.
Eight candidates from the National Rally were elected with less than 51% of the votes, including spokesperson Julien Odoul and outgoing MP Laure Lavalette. Conversely, 14 candidates came within a whisker of election with an absolute majority, including five from the NFP and eight from the National Rally.
The elections also saw multiple triangulars where candidates were separated by less than 1% of the votes. In the 4th constituency of Maine-et-Loire, RN candidate Aurore Lahondès narrowly led against outgoing MP Lætitia Saint-Paul. Similarly, in the 1st constituency of Loiret, outgoing MP Stéphanie Rist was ahead of socialist candidate Ghislaine Kounowski by only 69 votes.
- The legislative election campaign in France was also targeted by Russian interference, as reported by Swedish public media SVT Nyheter. The investigation revealed that articles on fake news sites were relayed by over a thousand pro-Russian robots from the 'Doppelgänger' network. These articles aimed to discredit the presidential coalition and favor the National Rally.
- Emmanuel Macron was frequently cited in a negative context, accused of abandoning the French for the war in Ukraine. In contrast, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella were mentioned without negative connotations. False quotes were also attributed to celebrities like Beyoncé and François Cluzet to further discredit Macron.
- State services have been on high alert for weeks due to the risks of foreign digital interference in the campaign. Although the attempts were less extensive than during the 2022 elections, the threat remains significant.
