The attack, which took place in May of last year, was not an isolated act of hate. Police quickly identified and arrested three Bulgarian suspects whose trial begins in Paris on Wednesday \u2014 a case that investigators and intelligence officials say offers a rare window into Russia\u2019s escalating campaign to destabilize France through covert influence and psychological operations.<\/p>\n
The vandalism of the Holocaust memorial was one of several symbolic assaults to shake the country over the past two years \u2014 featuring pig heads<\/a> dropped at mosques, Stars of David<\/a> sprayed on buildings, coffins<\/a> left next to the Eiffel Tower\u2014 each seemingly designed to inflame tensions between France\u2019s Jewish and Muslim communities or to erode French support for Ukraine ahead of a pivotal 2027 presidential election.<\/p>\n They point to how France has become a hot spot in Russia\u2019s hybrid war against Europe, as Moscow seeks to undermine one of Kyiv\u2019s most powerful backers by aggravating its political and social tensions. Analysts and officials say France presents both a prime target and a weak flank \u2014 a nation with global weight but domestic vulnerabilities that make it especially susceptible to manipulation.<\/p>\n “This reflects a geopolitical reality: Russia considers France to be a serious adversary, it’s the only nuclear power in the EU, and the president of the Republic is quite vocal on support for Ukraine, considering scenarios such as the deployment of French soldiers to Odesa,\u201d said Kevin Limonier, a professor and deputy director at the GEODE geopolitical research center in Paris, where his team has mapped out<\/a> Russia\u2019s hybrid war operations in Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cIn France, we are a little further away from the eastern flank and we don’t have the same level of prevention as the countries from the former Soviet Union,\u201d said Natalia Pouzyreff, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s Renaissance party who co-authored a report on foreign interference earlier this year.\u00a0 \u201cThe population is more receptive to this kind of rhetoric.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Red handed<\/p>\n French authorities have accused four men of orchestrating the defacement of the Holocaust memorial. The three allegedly <\/strong>on the scene, Mircho Angelov, Georgi Filipov and Kiril Milushev, fled Paris that same morning by bus to Brussels, then boarded a flight to Sofia.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The attack, which took place in May of last year, was not an isolated act of hate. Police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[26388,768,13489,13490,13071,33,34,1105,36,15414,2817,2818,7163,660,2452,2597,332,811,6567,182,657,333,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-534597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-borders","10":"tag-bulgaria","11":"tag-croatia","12":"tag-disinformation","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-emmanuel-macron","15":"tag-far-right","16":"tag-france","17":"tag-holocaust","18":"tag-intelligence","19":"tag-intelligence-services","20":"tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","21":"tag-kremlin","22":"tag-media","23":"tag-military","24":"tag-russia","25":"tag-security","26":"tag-serbia","27":"tag-social-media","28":"tag-ukraine","29":"tag-vladimir-putin","30":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115455358656264700","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}