Taking the form of deepfakes and fabricated news reports spreading unfounded rumors about the health or alleged corruption of potential candidates, the information manipulation operations have targeted former Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal, along with MEP Raphaël Glucksmann.
A particularly revealing recent example came in February, when France’s VIGINUM, the government agency responsible for detecting foreign digital interference, attributed to the Russian-linked Storm-1516 network a campaign falsely linking President Emmanuel Macron to Jeffrey Epstein. The operation used a fabricated version of the French news outlet France-Soir and doctored screenshots purporting to show emails from the US Justice Department. The material was then amplified on X, illustrating how Russian operators can combine fake media outlets, manipulated documents, and social-media amplification to give false stories the appearance of a genuine news event.
While the more recent campaign’s reach has been relatively limited, the selection of the three candidates most committed to Europe and opposed to Russia demonstrates the Kremlin’s intent to interfere.
The stakes are high. The next French presidential vote, scheduled for April-May, is critical for Ukraine, the European Union (EU) and the wider continent. As one of the EU’s most consequential countries in both military and economic terms, Russia will work for an outcome that weakens Western European unity. France is central to European efforts to reorganize and take greater responsibility for defense and security given the lessening US commitment.
The Kremlin has been doing this for some years. Moscow-linked outlets circulated claims before the 2017 election that Emmanuel Macron held a secret bank account in the Bahamas, for example, which were amplified by his rival Marine Le Pen in the presidential runoff debate. Macron denounced the campaign during Vladimir Putin’s visit to Versailles the following year.
The likeliest beneficiary of such stories is the right-wing populist Rassemblement National (RN). While the party has, at least rhetorically, moderated some of its positions on foreign policy in recent years, it carries a legacy of pro-Russian positions, including those of Marine Le Pen, who defended the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the same year her party took a €9.4m loan from a Russian bank. That was paid off in 2023.
The RN voted against the €90bn ($105bn) EU loan to Ukraine in February and has invoked “red lines” intended to limit support for Kyiv. An RN government would, at the very least, mean tougher negotiations over each new assistance package and would likely be less willing to champion initiatives aimed at strengthening NATO’s eastern flank.
It cannot be ruled out that an RN government could shift its position once in power, as has happened in Italy, where Giorgia Meloni adopted significantly more European and pro-Ukrainian positions after becoming prime minister. But the rest of Europe, especially Germany, must consider how to deal with a French government that stepped back from its responsibilities to NATO and Ukraine.
Though less likely, another possibility is a win for the far-left populist La France Insoumise (LFI), which has sought to consolidate its growing influence on the left of French politics since the 2024 legislative elections.
In January, one of the movement’s representatives, Clémence Guetté, introduced a resolution to parliament that mapped a path for France’s withdrawal from NATO, first leaving the alliance’s integrated command structure, then completely quitting the organization.
Six months later, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the group’s leader, outlined a plan for “cooperative non-alignment,” which included withdrawal from Western military alliances, stronger cooperation with China, and opening a dialogue with Russia once the invasion of Ukraine has ended.
The benefit to Russia is clear, but will the interference work?
Although there have been notable Russian successes in election meddling, more recent attempts to skew results in Moldova, Hungary, and even France itself have failed to produce the electoral effect their Kremlin and its agents wanted. When a national leader has become deeply unpopular, as with Viktor Orbán, it’s hard for information manipulation to bridge the gap. Closer elections, however, present outside agents with more fertile ground.
Will French voters fall for this? The answer is far from clear. In a close election, disinformation does not need to persuade a majority of voters to be politically useful and can simply reinforce existing doubts, depress turnout among particular groups, or push undecided voters toward a candidate they already find more credible. France has already shown that fabricated claims can break into the mainstream political conversation, as happened during the 2017 campaign.
The current French political landscape is also unusually unsettled. The Rassemblement National remains firmly ahead in first-round polling, but the identity of its eventual challenger is far from clear. An Ipsos poll conducted in late May put Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen between 31% and 36%, depending on the configuration, while Édouard Philippe ranged from 13% to 19%, Jean-Luc Mélenchon from 13% to 13.5%, and Raphaël Glucksmann from 11% to 14%.
More recent polling has made the picture still less predictable. By late August, Mélenchon had emerged as a serious contender for the second round, with two surveys during the same week suggesting that he could qualify to face the RN. The possibility of a runoff between the RN and LFI therefore cannot be dismissed, particularly if Mélenchon succeeds in consolidating a large part of the left behind a single candidacy. For now, the left remains divided, however, with Raphaël Glucksmann having declared his candidacy and the Socialists and Greens still weighing their own strategies.
France is not waiting passively. VIGINUM, the government agency responsible for detecting and attributing foreign digital interference, has been given a central role in monitoring information manipulation operations. The government also adopted its first National Strategy for Countering Foreign Information Manipulation this year, setting out measures through 2030 to improve detection, attribution and coordination across government.
Ahead of the March municipal elections, French authorities also established a national coordination network to monitor and respond to foreign interference. VIGINUM detected several foreign interference operations during those elections, providing authorities with a test of the systems that will be needed for the 2027 presidential vote.
The choice of targets in France, as in other European countries, is not a coincidence. By targeting the candidates most strongly committed to Kyiv and Europe, Moscow wants to engineer a shift to an Élysée less willing to support Ukraine and the security architecture built around it since 2022.
It is this prospect that should command the attention of European capitals and France’s voters.
Jean-Baptiste Laborde holds a bachelor’s degree in law and political science from the University of Bordeaux and is currently completing a dual master’s degree in global security and international political analysis at Galatasaray University in Istanbul and the University of Bordeaux. His work focuses on Turkish foreign policy, NATO-EU relations, and the public policy dimensions of transatlantic security.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
