By John Irish and Gianluca Lo Nostro
PARIS, Feb 6 (Reuters) – France has uncovered a pro-Russia disinformation campaign falsely connecting President Emmanuel Macron to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a French government source said on Friday.
The source said the state service for Vigilance and Protection against Foreign Digital Interference had detected an operation that used tactics like those of Storm-1516, a pro-Russia group that U.S. authorities suspect spread disinformation during the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign.
The content included screenshots of fake emails, which were made to appear to have come from a new U.S. Justice Department dump of Epstein files and to implicate Macron.
One email falsely described Macron as hosting a party with underage individuals.
Macron’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the disinformation campaign and on whether the president had ever met Epstein, either before or after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for procuring an underage girl for prostitution.
FAKE WEBSITE
The disinformation operation started with a website purporting to be French online daily France-Soir.
The counterfeit domain published an article on Wednesday accusing Macron of ties to Epstein. The information was later amplified through a video posted on Elon Musk’s X platform, the source said.
French Response, an X account run by France’s foreign ministry, described the article as false and denied its contents.
The fake website was taken down after a complaint by the real France-Soir but Reuters found that the video pertaining to be a news report could still be viewed on X.
Asked by Reuters whether French authorities had requested it remove the video, X did not respond.
The initial video post came from an account tied to Storm-1516, the source said. Many other accounts also disseminated the content.
The Russian Embassy in Paris could not immediately be reached for comment.
A French official said Paris had previously expressed concern to Moscow about what it views as Russian efforts to discredit Macron, including during his first presidential run in 2017. Moscow denied those allegations.
European governments have accused Russia and pro-Moscow actors of orchestrating a broader campaign of interference aimed at destabilising European governments and undermining the European Union. Moscow rejects the allegations.
(Reporting by John Irish; Writing by Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Richard Lough and Timothy Heritage)
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