France has accused Russia’s military intelligence service of waging “a silent war” against it for the past decade to sow strife and spy for the Kremlin.
In a sign of its anger over hostile Russian interference, the government named the GRU, the Kremlin’s largest foreign intelligence agency, as the perpetrator of a stream of attacks since 2015 for the first time.
These include hacking President Macron’s 2017 election campaign, flooding social media with false information, attempted sabotage of broadcasters, meddling in the 2024 Olympics and cyberattacks on infrastructure and French companies, the foreign ministry said.
A Russian hacking organisation, called Advanced Persistent Threat or APT28 and also known as Fancy Bear, is on the front line of these attacks, it said.
“Behind these initials hides the new face of a silent war waged by Russia against France,” the ministry said in a video posted by Jean-Noël Barrot, the foreign minister.
“At the controls are agents of the GRU. Among them, a group called APT28 infiltrates French digital networks with two aims: collecting intelligence for the benefit of the Kremlin and destabilising our society by creating distrust.”
Since 2021 the attacks have multiplied, Barrot said. Russian targets have including ministries, local authorities, arms and aerospace businesses and other sectors of the economy.
Jean-Noël Barrot said that the Kremlin was aiming to “destabilise society”
GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAERT/AP
“The GRU has been carrying out cyberattacks against France for several years using a method known as APT28,” the minister added on X.
Britain, the European Union and the United States have accused the group of being run by the Kremlin. It was blamed for the hacking of Democratic Party emails during Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2016.
Macron’s government has strengthened French defences against disinformation and cyberattacks after the attempted disruption of his 2017 election campaign when Russia attempted to sway opinion towards Marine Le Pen, his hard-right opponent.
It created the National Agency for Information System Security, which reports annually on operations by Russia, Iran, China and other suspected hostile states.
The new foreign ministry video said: “In cyberspace, France is observing its adversaries. It is blocking them and it is fighting them.”
Macron has repeatedly accused Russia of interference, saying it has targeted France in particular since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Intelligence documents from an unnamed European state last year, leaked to The Washington Post, said that the Kremlin had focused on France to destabilise European support for Kyiv because the country was deemed to be vulnerable to political turmoil.
Macron has been personally targeted with online campaigns believed to be boosted by Moscow, claiming he is homosexual, that his wife was born a man and that he is part of a corrupt cabal. The claims have been broadcast around Europe by Kremlin-backed media, including Russia Today television.
France has also accused Russia of organising physical stunts. These have included the placing last June of five coffins draped in French flags, inscribed with “French soldiers of Ukraine”, near the Eiffel Tower.
Russian operatives were blamed for a stunt involving empty coffins placed near the Eiffel Tower last year
Moscow has denied all involvement. Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical left France Unbowed party, have accused Macron of fantasising over Russia’s supposed interference.
After striving to forge a personal rapport with President Putin until 2022, Macron has since become one of Europe’s more outspoken hawks over Ukraine. This week he said that western allies would raise pressure on Russia in the next ten days. He said that he told Trump at the Pope’s funeral on Sunday: “We need to be much tougher with the Russians.”