There are all grounds to assume that Moscow is involved in smear camping against the wife of French President Emanuel Macron, thereby to decrease the chances of the sitting French president to win the 2022 elections. The boosted activity of Russian-affiliated social accounts created during the 2017 French presidential election proves this involvement. In 2017 Moscow conduct information attacks against Macron and also tried to discredit his wife. This fact gives grounds to conclude that the 2022 presidential elections in France have been already under the informational influence.
The media assets of the Kremlin-linked ultra-right political forces take an active part in the current information attack.
In mid-October, the journal Faits et documents, founded by far-right activist Emmanuel Ratier, whose merits were highly valued by Jean-Marie Le Pen (Marie Le Pen’s father), published the investigation ‘Le Mystère Brigitte Macron’.Ratier is regularly accused of both anti-Semitism and racism, and supporting conspiracy theories.
Xavier Poussard, associated with ‘Faits et documents’, has been publishing smear materials against the President of France for a long period of time. For example, in July 2021, he raised the topic of child molestation. In fact, the nature of these accusations is similar to the so-called Pizzagate spreading by Russian intelligence as part of discredit campaign against presidential candidate from the Democratic Party of the United States in 2016.
The very first mention discrediting Bridget Macron in this scandal was found on Facebook in early March. The post was shared by Natasha Ray, allegedly one of the key propagandists of the right-wing force. She pretends to be a journalist but probably this is an influence account controlled by one of the Russian ‘troll factories’ and created to act against Macron since 2018.
Politically, Natacha Rey presents herself on Facebook as one of the “Patriots-resistance-nationalists”, supports the far-right activist Hervé Lalin, known as Ryssen (supporting the candidacy of the Russian favorite Eric Zemmour in the 2022 presidential elections), imprisoned for his negationist and anti-Semitic remarks, and is relaying the most popular conspiracy theories in recent years (the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris was allegedly caused by Muslims, the Marrakesh Pact and the coronavirus would be “a plan of the USA and the Israeli government” …). She also does not hide her sympathy for the multicondemned Dieudonné, with whom she already shared her transphobic obsessions from June 2021.
On December 4, 2018, she wrote as follows: “We are going to execute them all, Macron, his government, the others before, all the leaders of the EU, the elders. The new ones there will be none missing. Giscard and Chirac had better hurry to die. We are going to avenge the Vendeans and the king and the queen. Death theRepublic ! Death the Collabos!” On December 7, she noted that “To cut off Macron’s head would be to cut off the head of the” republic “, and through the republic, freemasonry and high finance, the two main enemies of the people”. From January 2019, she regularly posts photos of Brigitte Macron and claims that the president’s wife is a man. In February 2019, she added an unfavorable opinion to the Facebook page @BrigiiteMacronNewsNonOfficiel by commenting: ‘I do not support the totalitarian regime or transsexualism’.
Among the accounts contributed the most into spreading Twitter fake news we find anti-Emmanuel Macron profiles from the extreme right and from the antivax and covidosceptic circles. On Facebook, the rumor was particularly spread by pages supporting the yellow vests movement or opposed to the health policy of the Macron presidency. In addition to French accounts, Russian military intelligence-linked accounts have been also detected in supporting the yellow vest campaign and conducting anti-vaccination campaigns in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed himself to make obscure and incomprehensible hints about Brigitte Macron. In 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a compliment to Brigitte Macron’s face during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. Their dialogue records were twitted on the Kremlin Pool RIA page.
On the video one can hear the leaders of the two countries discussing work issues and Putin making a compliment to the wife of the French president, ‘You have a gorgeous face’.
In conclusion, there are indicators that Russia gets actively involved in influencing the upcoming election campaign in France, using the tactics of interfering in the US elections in 2016.
