About sixty dubious phenomena were identified on digital platforms during the presidential and legislative elections in 2022, announced Tuesday Viginum, the government structure responsible for detecting foreign digital interference. She evokes “inauthentic phenomena on digital platforms”.
Among these “phenomena”, twelve are the subject of in-depth investigations and five have finally been characterized as foreign digital interference, phenomena which have multiplied in the world in recent years. Viginum did not, however, wish to give more details on the country of origin of these interferences or on the platforms used.
This first year of activity consisted of “a rise in power, and made it possible to prepare and ensure that the presidential election went well”, said a source familiar with the matter.
False information spread
An “inauthentic phenomenon” is characterized by the dissemination of information – false or misleading – in an “artificial or automated, massive and deliberate” way, recalls the forty-page report which gives – in all and for all – only one example of attempted foreign digital manipulation during an election campaign.
In March 2022, just before the first round of the French presidential election, Viginum said it had noted the rapid spread, on several social media platforms, of manifestly inaccurate or misleading content. These contents evoked a supposed use, by the French government, of voting machines from a Canadian company, accused by certain North American activist currents of having participated in electoral fraud that led to the defeat of the former president. American Donald Trump.
“Before this informational maneuver gained momentum, the services of the Ministry of the Interior as well as several media very quickly denied this misleading information”, underlines in the report the lieutenant-colonel Marc-Antoine Brillant, head of service deputy of Viginum.
Other operations carried out
Viginum, which employs around forty agents, has also carried out “numerous operations in order to secure the digital public debate relating to various national or international current events likely to be exploited by malicious foreign actors, such as war in Ukraine or France’s action in the Sahel”, continues the report.
Digital interference, attempts to manipulate opinions on social networks or hacking actions, have multiplied in Western electoral campaigns in recent years. Among the most emblematic cases: the interference from Russia during the 2016 American presidential election, which was the subject of an in-depth investigation by the American authorities.
Russia regularly involved
The pro-Russian camp is also regularly involved in interference operations in French political life or in Africa. The “Prigojine galaxy”, named after the Russian founder of the paramilitary company Wagner, reputed to be close to the Kremlin, is particularly active on social networks. “The Russian camp bothered us during the election campaigns, via fake pro or anti-government accounts in Mali, Senegal, Benin and CAR. But it didn’t take, ”confided a source familiar with the matter in July.
But Russia is not the only country suspected of trying to manipulate public opinion. In the past, the Elysée had thus mandated a cell called “Task Force Honfleur” to investigate an anti-French disinformation campaign that appeared on social networks after the assassination in October 2020 of teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist. This background noise will prove to be of Turkish origin, according to several French sources. This experimentation is at the origin of the creation of the Viginum structure.