Recent investigations and European reports highlight how foreign actors—including a covert Russian network—leveraged social media to amplify and exploit the widespread cost-of-living protests and riots that unfolded in France.
Key Aspects:
The activity is tied to a persistent information operation tracked as “Operation Overload,” which has been active since late 2023.
The network is known to target Western public figures, institutions, and media outlets.
In August, ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected allegations by a French state watchdog agency of spreading disinformation about France’s 2027 elections and said they would “not be the last concoction which the authorities will use to manipulate public opinion”.
A separate internal assessment, compiled by France’s foreign ministry and also seen by Reuters, found that social media accounts linked to Israel and to the US MAGA movement also pushed “hostile narratives” around the riots, linking them to radical immigration.
Amplifying Domestic Unrest:
Rather than manufacturing the protests entirely from scratch, covert networks took advantage of authentic domestic crises (such as anger over inflation, rising fuel prices, and socioeconomic pressures) to fan the flames online.
Disinformation and Fake Content:
Online actors used coordinated social media accounts to spread misleading narratives, manipulate footage, and distribute fake videos intended to exacerbate social divisions and sow distrust in French institutions.
Broader Information Warfare:
Investigations by digital monitoring groups and EU regulators have pointed to a wider pattern where external actors—including networks linked to Russia—use secondary commercial accounts and digital echo chambers to make polarizing narratives reach millions of users.
European intelligence and digital watchdogs continue to scrutinize these operations as part of a broader effort to safeguard democratic processes against foreign information manipulation.
