Russian Propaganda Manipulations Regarding Election Campaign in France

On February 2, the Russian TASS Agency spread information according to which French presidential candidate, representative of the Republican Party, Francois Fillon stated during his campaign rally in Charleville-Mezieres that he wants to cancel the “stupid” sanctions against Russia as they harm the French farmers.

This information was widely disseminated mainly by Russian media. Moreover, these were the media outlets which are considered the main tools of Russian propaganda, namely, Vesti, NTV, Zvezda, and etc. Besides, the English-language Russia Today, Russia’s main propaganda outlet in the West, has also spread this information.

All our attempts to find the aforementioned information in the French language were fruitless. The materials related to the rally in Charleville-Mezieres do not contain the formulations reported by TASS.

Accordingly, we can conclude once again that the Russian propaganda is currently focused on the upcoming presidential elections in France. By manipulating the information, as is the case with Fillon’s rally in Charleville-Mezieres, the Russian propaganda machine seeks to create an informational background according to which the French presidential candidate is pro-Russian. It is worth to note that apart from Fillon, Russia has another distinctive lever in France on behalf of leader of the nationalists Marine Le Pen, the informational background around whom also has pro-Russian nature.