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False information targeting Armenia is once again shared on X (Twitter). The bot account published a video that featured the name of a famous French Le Point newspaper, its subtitles stating that 70 percent of members of the Civil Contract party have applied for French citizenship. “This is direct interference of France in the political life of Armenia. The same happened in Moldova ahead of the parliamentary elections,” the subtitles read. The video was widely circulated on X.
Allegation about applying for French citizenship
There is no information about 70 percent of the Civil Contract party members applying for French citizenship. There has not even been any talk about it in Armenia, no source has referred to it.
By the way, obtaining French citizenship is not that easy. It is a complex and lengthy process that requires many years of residence in France and compliance with a number of special requirements. Granting citizenship to hundreds of officials at once is technically and politically impossible. In addition, there is no such information or article about it on the Le Point website.
Famous French magazine used as a tool for spreading lies
The logo featured in the video is the name of a popular French media outlet Le Point. It is one of the largest political and social weekly news magazines in France.
At the end of the video posted on X, two names are listed as authors: Boris Hansel and Pierre Le Mouellic. These people are real, they exist, but they have nothing to do with political journalism. Boris Hansel is a renowned French professor and writes exclusively for Le Point on health and science topics. One of his recent YouTube posts refers to the topic of gaining weight after quitting smoking.
As for Pierre Le Mouellic, he is a video editor. His name appears at the end of Boris Hansel’s real video messages.
In fact, the authors of the fake video took the end part of one of Le Point’s health videos and merged it to a video with political content to give credibility to the fake video circulated on X.
By the way, Le Point has often been used as a tool for such disinformation campaigns. Recently information was spread using the logo of this media outlet, alleging that caricatures of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have appeared on buildings. However, this information was debunked by French fact-checkers.
Armenia as a target of disinformation campaigns
The video was shared by an unknown bot account on X. This post was preceded by a Spanish language post back in 2012. This form of disinformation is typical of the Storm-1516 disinformation campaign. This network, active since 2023, specializes in creating “false breaking news” that are presented as journalistic investigations. And besides, Storm-1516 is more focused on short, fake, and also emotional videos that are spread on social networks (X, Telegram).
The French VIGINUM Center for Combating Foreign Information Influence (French: Service de vigilance et de protection contre les ingérences numériques étrangères) published a report on the Storm 1516 disinformation campaign. The latter is an “information manipulation set” or network focused on exerting informational, propaganda influence.
Earlier, FIP.am also referred to another disinformation campaign called “Doppelgänger“. In this case, short-lived websites are created, copying or cloning a reputable website, using their logos and design (for example, Le Point, Le Monde, France 24) to “legitimize” the fake content.
The Matryoshka network has also targeted Armenia, spreading AI-generated fake information about Nikol Pashinyan.
According to the VIGINUM report, these information operations mainly spread pro-Russian, anti-Western narratives and false publications. Currently, Armenia is the target of these operations.
Recently, starting in the summer of 2025, there has been an activation of these networks specifically on Armenian topics, largely due to the pre-election period in Armenia.
The main goal of these campaigns is to create “information chaos” and undermine trust in democratic processes and state institutions.
Thus, the video circulating on X, according to which 70% of Civil Contract party members have applied for French citizenship, is not true. Such a publication does not exist in the French Le Point magazine, and the video used a manipulative logo and the names of real people to give credibility to the false content.
Hasmik Hambardzumyan
