Exclusively, a team from “Complément d’Enquête” was able to follow the work of Viginum, the new cell charged by the French state with countering foreign digital interference. By dint of scrutinizing social networks, its agents have uncovered a strange false pro-Macron campaign. This excerpt reveals how a Kremlin close is suspected of attacking the 2022 presidential election.
It all started in March 2022, when Viginum analysts spotted a Facebook page with content stuffed with misprints promoting “President Macorn”. Then, posted by the same account, visuals resembling campaign posters … which are not part of the official set of the candidate. Then there are dozens of accounts promoting Emmanuel Macron… behind his back. These pages were created in clusters, a few weeks before the launch of the official campaign, notes Viginum. In addition, these accounts, based in Africa, never work on weekends…
Dozens of fake pro-Macron accounts based in Africa
But why create a fake pro-Macron campaign like this? The answer is given on April 7, three days before the first round, by an African media. NetAfrique reveals the existence of this network of accounts in an article titled “Electoral fever in France: African propaganda network”. “In reality, explains David Robert, operations manager at Viginum, it is the beginning of a deliberate media campaign, with a very clear narrative: to display the exploitation, the use by France of troll farms based in Africa. These fake pro-Macron accounts would therefore have been launched to create a scandal: the French president would cheat to boost his campaign.
Finally, a last article, published less than 24 hours after the re-election of the French president, looks like a signature. Titled “Paris bribes Africans and creates troll farms to support Macron’s image”, it is published on the Russian-language media RIA FAN, belonging to the Patriot Media group. The owner of this press group is none other than Evguéni Prigogine, close to Vladimir Putin and also head of the Wagner mercenary army… This same Evguéni Prigogine accused of having disrupted the American elections via the “farm to trolls” of Saint Petersburg which he financed in 2016…
Extract of “France: the Putin networks”, a document to see in “Complementary investigation” on October 27, 2022.
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