France Moves From Countering Russian Disinformation to Confronting Foreign Interference

France is undergoing a significant strategic shift in how it addresses Russian information warfare, moving beyond traditional counter-disinformation efforts toward a more comprehensive approach to confronting foreign interference. French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot has emerged as a leading voice calling for Paris to adopt a tougher and more systematic response to these threats. Central to this new approach is a critical conceptual distinction among three separate phenomena: opinion, which seeks to persuade; information manipulation, which seeks to mislead an audience; and foreign interference, which seeks to exert external influence over citizens’ freedom of democratic choice. This framework allows France to elevate the issue of Russian propaganda beyond the realm of media policy and into the domain of national security, while carefully avoiding equating efforts to counter foreign interference with restrictions on freedom of speech. The timing of this shift is particularly significant, coming as France prepares for its 2027 presidential election and faces what appears to be a coordinated wave of information operations targeting multiple political figures simultaneously.

The case of Xenia Fedorova, the former head of the French branch of the Russian state broadcaster RT, has become emblematic of this doctrinal evolution and may signal a fundamental shift in how France responds to Russian influence operations. Fedorova remained an active participant in France’s information environment for years, even after RT France ceased operations, operating in a gray zone between journalism and political influence. On July 29, 2026, the French Interior Ministry issued an order for her expulsion from the country, citing activities deemed harmful to the fundamental interests of the state. Her attempts to suspend enforcement of the decision were rejected twice by the Paris Administrative Court, demonstrating judicial support for the government’s position. What makes this case particularly significant is Barrot’s own characterization of Fedorova: he describes her not simply as a journalist or someone holding pro-Russian views, but as a professional participant in Kremlin-directed destabilization operations. This framing suggests that France’s central question is no longer whether an individual has the right to express pro-Russian views, but whether that individual’s activities form part of an organized influence operation directed by a foreign state. This distinction is critical for maintaining democratic principles while countering covert activities designed to manipulate democratic processes.

France is tightening its policy against the backdrop of the first Russian information operations associated with the presidential election scheduled for spring 2027, and the emerging picture reveals a sophisticated, multi-target approach. Over the course of several weeks, disinformation campaigns targeted Édouard Philippe, Raphaël Glucksmann and Gabriel Attal, employing a range of techniques including fabricated news reports, counterfeit branding of French media outlets, forged documents, artificially generated voices and videos. The Glucksmann case is particularly instructive: according to him, France’s General Secretariat for Defence and National Security informed him that the operation had been conducted by the Storm-1516 network, which has been linked to Russian military intelligence. The operators created a fake news website, impersonated a French media outlet, and used forged documents and AI-generated audio to manufacture compromising allegations. This pattern indicates that France is entering the 2027 presidential campaign with pre-positioned information-interference operations already underway, and the breadth of targets suggests a strategy that transcends simple electoral calculus.

Understanding the true objective of these operations requires looking beyond the question of whom Moscow wants to become president of France. Discrediting several candidates simultaneously can create the impression that the entire political system is corrupt, the media are unreliable, fabricated compromising material is indistinguishable from genuine investigative journalism, and election results themselves may be manipulated. The ultimate objective may therefore be less about electoral conversion—shifting voters from one candidate to another—and more about creating systemic distrust: eroding confidence in the democratic system itself. Under this model, the Kremlin does not necessarily need to secure the victory of its preferred candidate. A politically fragmented France, a president with weaker public legitimacy, and a society in which a significant share of citizens distrust elections, the media and state institutions may constitute a sufficient strategic outcome. The development of generative artificial intelligence amplifies this threat considerably, as counterfeiting the logos of Le Monde, AFP, France 24 or other established media organizations, cloning the voices of journalists and politicians, and producing deepfake videos dramatically reduce the cost of information operations. The strategic effect of deepfakes extends beyond persuading citizens to believe a particular fabrication; a potentially more dangerous outcome is the gradual creation of an environment in which citizens can no longer be confident that any piece of digital evidence is authentic. The objective may therefore be not to persuade the public to believe a particular lie, but to undermine the information environment’s ability to establish commonly accepted facts.

It is in this context that Barrot’s call for France to move beyond an exclusively defensive posture becomes particularly significant, as he proposes a fundamental reconceptualization of the counter-interference model. The traditional model for countering disinformation is predominantly reactive, following a predictable pattern: Russian operation leads to detection of a fake, which leads to debunking, which leads to content removal, which leads to investigation. The weakness of this model is that the initiative remains with the actor conducting the operation—the Kremlin determines the subject, timing and platform of the attack, while the democratic state is forced to respond. Barrot is effectively proposing a different model built on societal resilience, an independent strategic narrative, early detection of operations, rapid attribution, exposure of the network, and legal and diplomatic consequences. This represents an important evolution in the French approach, moving from a purely defensive posture to one that seeks to seize the initiative. However, the development of a “national narrative” carries risks of its own. The French government must avoid a situation in which efforts to counter Russian propaganda are themselves perceived by part of society as state propaganda. The most effective national narrative is therefore not one in which the government creates a competing information campaign, but one based on greater transparency of the democratic system and the rapid presentation of verifiable evidence of foreign interference. Evidence-based attribution should become the central element of the French model—the more precisely the state can explain who created an operation, which accounts disseminated it, what infrastructure was used, which media organizations were impersonated, and what links exist between the operators and a foreign state, the more difficult it becomes for the Kremlin to portray French countermeasures as political censorship.

France’s presidential election has particular strategic importance for Moscow because of Paris’s role in the EU, NATO and the shaping of European security policy, making the 2027 contest a potential test of a new model of Russian interference. Russian operations could simultaneously target several levels: discrediting individual candidates, exacerbating existing political and social divisions, undermining confidence in traditional media, spreading doubts about electoral integrity, intensifying polarization, and fostering attitudes more favorable to Moscow regarding sanctions, NATO and European defense policy. Crucially, Russia does not need to create social divisions from scratch to achieve these objectives. It is considerably cheaper and more effective to identify existing fault lines within French society and amplify them through information operations. The primary object requiring protection should therefore not be any particular candidate, political party or government, but the integrity of France’s information and electoral environment. The Fedorova case and the information operations targeting potential candidates in the 2027 presidential election indicate a gradual shift in France’s perception of the Russian threat, with Russian propaganda increasingly viewed not merely as a collection of undesirable or manipulative messages, but as one instrument within a broader system of foreign interference. France is effectively attempting to establish a legal boundary between protected freedom of expression and activities conducted in the interests of a foreign state with the objective of influencing democratic processes. The 2027 presidential election may therefore become more than an electoral contest for France; it could be the first major test of the state’s ability to withstand a new generation of Russian information interference without weakening the democratic freedoms that such interference seeks to exploit against France itself.

An important analytical caveat must be noted: not all detected campaigns achieve significant reach or influence, and Le Monde has noted that some operations targeting candidates were relatively crude and may have had limited impact. Public exposure can sometimes inadvertently amplify their audience, and the existence of a Russian operation does not equal its success. Nevertheless, the scale already warrants attention. Within roughly two weeks, Russian or Russia-linked campaigns targeted Édouard Philippe, Raphaël Glucksmann and Gabriel Attal. VIGINUM detected relevant operations, while the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the campaign targeting Glucksmann. The principal key intelligence question should therefore be whether Russia is seeking to influence the outcome of the 2027 election in favor of a specific political force, or whether its strategic objective is to delegitimize any electoral outcome and create a long-term crisis of confidence in French democracy. The answer to this question would fundamentally change the assessment of the broader Russian campaign. Furthermore, the French model will have implications for Europe as a whole, as Russian information networks operate across national borders, meaning that national detection mechanisms will remain insufficient without rapid information-sharing among VIGINUM, the intelligence and law-enforcement services of other EU member states, and the relevant European institutions. France’s success in navigating this challenge while preserving democratic freedoms will set an important precedent for how European democracies respond to the evolving threat of foreign interference in an era of generative AI and sophisticated information warfare.