A covert Russian network used social media to exploit last month's riots in France, blaming the unrest on uncontrolled immigration and portraying the French government as having lost control, according to an internal European Union assessment seen by Reuters and reported on Monday, November 9. A separate internal assessment compiled by France's foreign ministry, also seen by Reuters, found that social media accounts linked to Israel and to the US MAGA movement also pushed what it called hostile narratives around the riots, linking them to radical Islamism and migration.
Rioting erupted in cities across France last month after demonstrations against rising living costs and declining public services spiralled out of control, in some of the worst violence the country has seen for decades. The two assessments, reported together for the first time on Monday, show how outside actors tried to use France's domestic turmoil for their own political ends, European disinformation specialists told Reuters.
Fake news videos impersonating Western media
The EU analysis found that a covert Russian network known as Operation Overload spread videos impersonating Western media outlets to target French audiences. Some of the videos falsely claimed that migrants had raped protesters or that terrorist attacks were imminent, Reuters reported. The EU analysis, covering October 7 to 21, found that Russia sought to depict the French leadership as weak and increasingly authoritarian.
A restricted-circulation EU document prepared by disinformation experts in the bloc's diplomatic service said such events offer opportunities to undermine national governments, fuel fear and division, and shape public perceptions ahead of elections, according to Reuters. Crucially, the assessment found no evidence that Moscow or any other actor had instigated or escalated the protests, describing the activity instead as the opportunistic exploitation of unrest.
MAGA and Israeli-linked posts drew far larger audiences
The French foreign ministry assessment put the reach of the Russian-linked posts in perspective: the 10 most-viewed X posts on the unrest from pro-Russian spheres got 2.8 million views from October 16 to 18. Those figures were dwarfed, Reuters reported, by posts from accounts linked to the MAGA movement and to Israeli officials and influencers — more than 49 million views for the top 10 MAGA-linked posts and more than 35 million for the top 10 posts from Israeli officials, government accounts, media outlets and influencers in the same three days.
An independent study by Alliance4Europe, which analysed 547,471 posts on X, Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and news sites in nine languages, reached the same broad conclusion: the protests were born in France and their causes lie in France, it found no evidence a foreign actor was behind their origin, but foreign actors worked actively to amplify and inflame public anger and polarise debate. Alliance4Europe said a bot network it attributes with high confidence to Russia's Doppelganger operation posted 639 coordinated messages in French, German, English and Polish in the six weeks before October 17, seen roughly 7.4 million times, and that the Russian Pravda network published 1,018 articles across 28 sites in nine languages.
A network running since 2023, aimed at support for Ukraine
The EU report said Operation Overload, active since September 2023, has targeted Western public figures, institutions and media outlets to discredit them and their support for Ukraine while promoting content aligned with Russian interests, and that its activity also intended to undermine European support for Ukraine by claiming European governments prioritise Ukraine over domestic issues. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a Britain-based think tank, said in a report last year that Operation Overload impersonates trusted sources to sow discord, confusion and distrust, creating videos that appear to be news reports, using AI to clone experts' voices, forging newspaper headlines and manipulating images.
France's disinformation watchdog Viginum published a detailed report on Operation Overload and similar Russian operations in 2024, and French officials have said they resurface during protests, elections or other opportunities to discredit France. Elina Treyger, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation think tank, told Reuters such campaigns wage a slow-burning narrative competition that over time can shape how Western democracies are seen, and feed an anti-immigrant backlash pushing European voters toward political extremes.
What is solid
- Reuters reported on November 9 that it had seen an internal EU assessment and a separate French foreign ministry assessment on foreign social-media activity around the October riots in France.
- Both the EU assessment, as reported by Reuters, and the independent Alliance4Europe study found no evidence that foreign actors instigated the protests; both found foreign-linked amplification of the unrest.
- President Emmanuel Macron said on October 21 there had been no visible foreign interference behind the protests, but there had been foreign manipulation of information, French officials told Reuters.
What is only claimed
- The attribution of Operation Overload to Russia comes from the EU assessment as reported by Reuters; Reuters said it was not able to independently verify assertions made in either the French or the EU report.
- Russia's foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters' request for comment on the assessments; in August, ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected a French watchdog's allegations of disinformation about France's 2027 elections.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office and the Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the French assessment.
What happens next: the findings land as France heads toward its 2027 elections and as the EU negotiates a 22nd package of sanctions on Russia. European disinformation specialists say networks like Operation Overload pivot from country to country to exploit crises and debates, so the same impersonation tactics documented in France in October are expected to resurface around the next protest wave or election in Europe — with the assessments now public, platforms and watchdogs will be pressed to show whether the fake-media videos are being taken down faster.