2023-11-10 02:25:47
The thesis of Russian interference seems to be becoming clearer. France on Thursday “firmly” condemned the role of a Russian network in “the artificial amplification and first-time dissemination on social networks of photos of tags representing Stars of David” in Paris, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs .
The press release accuses the Russian network Recent Reliable News (RRN) and considers that “this new operation of Russian digital interference against France testifies to the persistence of an opportunistic and irresponsible strategy aimed at exploiting international crises to sow confusion and to create tension.”
Several dozen stencilled blue Stars of David were discovered on October 31, on the facades of buildings in the 14th arrondissement of Paris and in other places in Paris and the suburbs. An investigating judge was appointed on Tuesday to identify the authors of the tags and understand their intentions, the possibility of an order coming from abroad being “not excluded” at this stage, according to a press release from the French justice system, who considered that this marking could have “been carried out at the express request of a person residing abroad”.
The man and woman suspected of the tags left France on the afternoon of October 31, according to the prosecution. The investigations nevertheless made it possible to compare these facts with another investigation, relating to acts committed four days previously: on October 27, a man and a woman born in Moldova were arrested in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.
Detection of a network of 1,095 bots
A local resident had seen them stenciling a blue star, which was erased the same day. They had declared that they had acted on the orders of a third party and for remuneration, which was evidenced by a conversation in Russian on their telephone, according to French justice. “Regarding the facts themselves, the current judicial investigation will have to establish the possible responsibility of a foreign sponsor,” noted the ministry on Thursday.
But Viginum, a French body which monitors foreign interference, detected “the involvement of a network of 1,095 bots on the X platform” (formerly Twitter) having published 2,589 posts linked to these tags, he said. added. Furthermore, “while the first authentic publication of the photos of the tags seems to have taken place on October 30 (…), Viginum identified the first publications of the RRN bot network from October 28 (…) that is to say almost 48 hours before”.
These tags caused great emotion in France, against a backdrop of a major increase in anti-Semitic acts since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. On Thursday, before the publication of this press release from France, Russian diplomacy denied any link with the tags, considering that the suspicions targeting Moscow, already relayed in the French press in recent days, were “stupid” and “unworthy”.
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