Why did the Russian disinformation machine target French voters?

https://www.euronews.com/2024/07/08/why-did-the-russian-disinformation-machine-target-french-voters

by GalaadJoachim

24 comments

  2. > For the Kremlin, the National Rally — whose stances on Russia are friendlier than those of President Macron, a staunch supporter of Ukraine — might have been the preferred winners of the French snap legislative elections, and Moscow likely tried to help boost their results on Sunday.

    > Scores of freshly registered websites, some made to look like mainstream outlets, have been publishing everything from deepfakes to generative AI writing impassionate fringe content and reports on real-world acts of subversion.

    > In more than 4,400 posts gathered since mid-November by antibot4navalny, a collective that analyses Russian bot behaviour, those targeting audiences in France and Germany predominated. The number of weekly posts ranged from 100 to 200 except for the week of 5 May, when it dropped to near zero, the data showed. That week, as it happens, was when Russia celebrates Victory Day — a major public holiday.

    > In February, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said in a public video address posted on X that a French state agency had discovered a network of 193 Russian websites, spreading propaganda before the 6-9 June European elections.

    > According to Burley, the lack of desire of Big Tech companies to put their foot down against the Kremlin’s campaigns has further encouraged Moscow, and turned spreading malign content on social media into a “small industry” in its own right.

    > “The way both Meta’s evolving and the way that X has already got there in terms of the monetisation of anger and angst makes it a really easy thing to do,” he said. “And not only does it get you your primary goal in terms of making people angry and upset, but also you make money out of it, which means you can put your money into digital marketing and do the whole thing again.”

  4. Their soul objective is to spread disinformation cause chaos in democratic societies. This is how they cause division through conspiracies, hacking vital institutions like hospitals, disrupt big businesses by demanding ransoms when they are hacked, jamming radars, funding right wing groups across the globe, imprisoning anybody who dares to oppose him or his regime. Putin is pure evil.

  6. Because it’s one of the biggest powers in Europe?

  7. They targeted every single European country. They were just more successful in France than in Germany for instance.

  8. Gee, I wonder. Could it be influencing elections? Nahhh…

  10. Because that’s what the russia does. Always has been. Always will be.

  11. Because russia is at war, not just against Ukraine, but the entire Western world, Australia, Japan New Zealand and South Korea included. Therefore the russians invest heavily in all kinds of hybrid warfare like election manipulation, electorate confusion and anger, provocation, sabotage and recruitment.

  12. They’ll target everyone. That’s how propaganda is intended.

  13. 1. France is one of the most powerful countries in Europe

    2, To make a new French government a puppet of Russia

  14. France has nukes. No support from France + possibly Trump winning = no Nuclear deterrent and the freedom to take more former soviet nations.

  15. Because Russia hates you and wants to bring chaos to your countries. Stop electing Russian parties to your parliament, people. “Far right” is not your friend.

  16. Russia was deep in the alt-right movement both in US and EU somewhere around 2016.

    they have gradually abandoned that “cause”, probably due to lack of resources, and Israel is filling up the vacancy.

    all new right wing movements, even the neo-nazi AfD, are strongly pro-Israel.

    [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcqNjiZw3EQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcqNjiZw3EQ)

  17. Anything that creates havoc or weakens the EU is fair game for them.

  18. Not just French. But they will spend all they have during an election cycle in any country. They will forget about France and turn to US next. This is what Russia does

  24. the only way to win this specific war is to turn off the internet in as many countries as possible for a month or so. Reset the human hive mind and take the power away from these massive dictatorships (Russia, China, USA)

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