“Today, we are quite deprived of resources”, regrets Senator LR Agnès Canayer

“Today, we are deprived of the means to fight against these interferences [étrangères] which aim to destabilize our democracy”, deplores Wednesday May 22 on franceinfo Agnès Canayer, LR senator from Seine-Maritime, rapporteur of a proposed law on foreign interference. This text, aimed at strengthening the arsenal to fight against foreign interference, is examined on Wednesday by the Senate.

The elected representative of Les Républicains explains that these interferences have the particularity that they “take advantage of weakened grounds and crisis situations to be able to inflame them, exacerbate them through false manipulations and cyberattacks.” Agnès Canayer says she has observed an increase in the number of foreign interferences. Faced with this observation, she pleads for information. Even if she considers that “prevention is best”when these interferences “exist”the senator considers that it is “good to inform public opinion to denounce them and raise awareness of the issues”. The senator also regrets that many fellow citizens, including “Politicians are not aware of these manipulations.”

The elected representative from Seine-Maritime specifies some provisions provided for by the proposed law, in particular the obligation for lobbies to register on a national register of influence. Agnès Canayer explains that this concerns “all natural or legal persons who intervene for a State outside the European Union, for a party outside the European Union”. This register will be “managed by the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life which will be able to control, make public by informing that this or that activity is carried out on behalf of a foreign power”.

This text also provides for the expansion of an algorithmic surveillance system to cases of foreign interference. Senator LR explains that this will be done within the framework of a “four-year experiment”with a “control of the National Commission for the Control of Intelligence Techniques (CNCTR) and of Parliament”. She considers that this tool “additional” could be useful for “the French intelligence services which today can only use algorithms to target acts of terrorism”. “We want to be able to extend it because we are well aware that it will be an important tool to be able to prevent cyberattacks and foreign interference”she says.