Russia has France in its sights. And it’s not something new. The European power is one of the most powerful, severe voices, the country that Vladimir Putin ordered to occupy almost four years ago. So the strategy of smearing the enemy is underway from the first day from the Kremlin: slander, something remains.
Along these lines, the neighboring country has now discovered a pro-Russian disinformation campaign that falsely links the French president, with the deceased sex offender, as reported by a French Government source to the agency.
This source explained that the state service for Surveillance and Protection against Foreign Digital Interference was the one that detected an operation that used tactics similar to those of , a pro-Russian group that US authorities suspect of spreading disinformation during the 2024 US presidential election campaign and also before the Paris Olympic Games, held in 2024.
The content included screenshots of fake emails, which were posed as a new leak of Epstein files from the US Department of Justice and implicated Macron. If you access the for this case, you will see that no, the French president does not appear.
One email, for example, falsely described Macron as hosting a party with minors, which is why Epstein was prosecuted (although he committed suicide in 2019, before everyone knew) and also his ex-girlfriend and partner, sentenced to 20 years.
Step by step
The disinformation operation began with a website posing as the French newspaper . The fake domain published an article on Wednesday accusing Macron of having ties to Epstein. The information was later disseminated through a video published on the X platform, according to the source.
French Response, an X account run by the French Foreign Ministry, called the article false and denied its content.
The fake website was taken down after a complaint from the real one France-Soirbut Reuters discovered that the video, which was supposedly a report, could still be seen on X. When Reuters asked if the French authorities had requested that the video be removed, the aforementioned network did not respond.
The initial post of the video came from an account linked to Storm-1516, according to the source. Many other accounts also spread the content.
The Russian Embassy in Paris could not immediately be reached for comment. A French official said Paris had previously expressed concern to Moscow over what it sees as Russian efforts to discredit Macron, including during his first presidential campaign in 2017. Moscow denied such accusations.
European governments have accused Russia and pro-Russian actors of orchestrating a broader campaign of interference aimed at destabilizing European governments and weakening the European Union. Moscow rejects the accusations.
The Lang case: what does appear
Macron did speak out yesterday afternoon about the Epstein case, but to ensure that the important thing is that the United States justice system “has to do its job,” especially with respect to the . “Justice there has to do its job,” stressed the French president, approached by the press during the opening of the Wine Paris wine fair in Paris, where he was reluctant to go further because he considered that it was not his role to participate in that public debate.
He spoke this way after the case made a splash in French politics through the former socialist minister, a very influential figure on the left and in the world of Culture who appears mentioned more than 600 times in Epstein’s files revealed to date.
As a result of the discovery of his links, and those of his daughter, with the deceased American convicted pedophile, Lang presented his resignation this Saturday from his position as president of the Arab World Institute (IMA), after the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office opened a preliminary investigation against both last Friday.
This Monday, it was also learned that Lang and his wife have been placed under police protection due to threats made against them on social networks, according to the French press. Threats that have also happened to the facts: the one who was a minister under the mandate of President François Mitterrand, a reference on the national left, has been the victim of an attack.
According to him, Lang was pushed to the ground in front of the Paris Opera, where a demonstration against child sexual abuse was taking place. “The individual, who was very active on these social networks, was sentenced to eight months in prison,” added his lawyer, cited by Europa Press.
Additionally, a French NGO that fights against sexual violence against minors has requested the reopening of an investigation carried out in 2019 in France, in order to determine whether Epstein’s luxurious apartment in Paris was the scene of sexual crimes and identify possible victims.
