Can France win the information war engaged with Russia?

The rivalry between Russia and France is played out in particular in the field of disinformation, where cyberspace is the first playground. Fake profiles are multiplying on social networks. Facebook has thus suspended many Russian trolls who are very active on Malian pages, but France is using the same subterfuge, with fake pro-French accounts, identified by Facebook. But to strengthen its position in Mali, Russia has an asset: Wagner’s mercenaries.

This online disinformation war reached a peak with the Gossi affair, when a man, posing as Malian, broadcast images of a mass grave and blamed France. A communication battle here won by the French, but the Malian media landscape is increasingly aligned with nationalist and pro-Russian discourse. “In the Malian media and in Malian social networks, there is a kind of confinement to the official narrative”, says Alain Antil, researcher and director of the Sub-Saharan Africa Center at Ifri. Russia seeks to accentuate this anti-French sentiment, and today takes more and more space in the media and with the Malian government.