Cyberattacks, false information, corruption… Faced with foreign interference in France, a bill studied to “retaliate and react”

This bill is presented to the Law Commission on Wednesday. In particular, it plans to draw inspiration from counter-terrorism methods.

Five months after a parliamentary report which denounced a form of “denial” by France vis-à-vis foreign interference in an “uninhibited” geopolitical context, a bill was discussed on Wednesday March 13 in the Law Commission. It is signed by three Renaissance deputies and provides for several legislative changes while several events – European elections, Paris Olympic Games – could be the subject of maneuvers from abroad.

“We are still in a context of hybrid war which is intensifying and which must lead us to retaliate and react,” thus alerts Constance Le Grip, member of the majority who is one of the three authors of the bill. She calls for “put the subject on the table”.

According to the parliamentary report published in November, three countries are particularly active in terms of interference: Russia, through the dissemination of false information and the appointment of former European leaders at the head of Russian companies; China, with a strategy of infiltration of public and private institutions; and to a lesser extent Türkiye, via political and religious entryism.

Drawing inspiration from the United States and counterterrorism methods

The bill is based on four articles. The first provides for the obligation for those who represent foreign interests in France, lobbyists for example, to register on a register entirely managed by the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP). The idea is inspired by what is done in Great Britain or the United States, in particular the American Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), with a system of criminal sanctions for offenders. Those who do not register on this register risk up to two years of imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros.

Article 3 provides for the use of certain methods used in counter-terrorism and in particular the so-called “algorithm” technique. “This technique authorizes, in a controlled manner, the implementation of automated processing intended to detect connections and browsing on the Internet which are likely to reveal the existence of a threat”, the report states. Allowed for the fight against terrorism, this three-year experiment would become possible under “national independence, territorial integrity and national defense“, of the “major interests of foreign policy, the execution of France’s European and international commitments” and the fight against foreign interference or attempts at interference. The left is worried about public freedoms but the authors of the law assure them that everything will be very controlled, with safeguards.

The text also provides for freezing the financial assets of foreign persons or companies bearing “attack on the fundamental interests of the Nation“, her “economic security” or “to the sincerity of electoral processes“. The bill also provides that the government submits a report to Parliament every year on “the state of threats to national security”. In the event of a vote in the Law Commission this Wednesday, the text will arrive at the National Assembly on March 25.