State agency, executive training… Senators call for strengthening the fight against foreign influence

In a report published on Thursday, senators believe that France must strengthen its system for combating disinformation and foreign interference.

In front of the “neo-cold war” informational, France must build a real policy to combat foreign influence. This is what the senators who presented their report from a commission of inquiry on Thursday, July 25, are demanding. They set out a series of 47 recommendations that they intend to submit to the next Prime Minister. The presentation of this report was deliberately made just before the start of the Olympic Games.

France is the subject of influence and disinformation campaigns every day and this will increase further with the Olympic Games, fears socialist senator Rachid Temal. “A few days ago, you may have seen a short video about the Olympics with people swimming in an extremely dirty Seine, people peeing in it, etc. Every day, you have messages on social networks about this, notes the senator. The slightest error, the slightest failure, the slightest problem in the Olympic Games will be greatly amplified to tell the whole world: ‘You see, ultimately France is weaker than it thinks.'”

Faced with this, France will have to “strengthens his game”said the senator. First, via the Viginum service, placed under the authority of Matignon, which is essentially responsible for detecting and finding the origin of false information circulating online, in order to be able to better denounce it.

A service that absolutely must be strengthened: “We need to create a real state agency. We also believe that there need to be more resources to act and that we need to create training logics in our society on the issue of interference and influence. With this logic of training elected officials, training state executives and having an ecosystem in our country, which does not currently exist on these issues.”

This service should ideally become European, believe the senators, who take the example of the latest agricultural movement, stirred up by foreign states.

The commission of inquiry believes that all actors in the state and even society must mobilize against foreign influences. It advocates awareness-raising from a young age in schools and the implementation of a media pass, so that young people rediscover the taste for subscriptions and learn to get information in ways other than social networks.

Another proposal: a ban on political parties being financed by foreign entities or personalities not residing in France. The National Rally and its former Russian loan are clearly targeted. A risk at a time when Russia has triggered a real “information warfare” against France, according to the senators.