French officials have accused a Russian group tied to military intelligence of foreign interference after it sought to discredit a centre-right candidate in upcoming local elections via a fraudulent website.
The operation against centre-right politician Pierre-Yves Bournazel, who is running for mayor of Paris, was likely conducted by the Storm-1516 network, said France's state-run Viginum agency, which tracks foreign disinformation campaigns.
The group is suspected of being behind numerous disinformation campaigns in France, including an effort detected in February to spread false claims linking President Emmanuel Macron to US convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Viginum said on Friday it had identified an account on X known to engage in disinformation operations, before discovering a website impersonating Bournazel's official site.
The agency said the website had been hijacked to "discredit his image" – though it described the move as a "low-profile" operation that garnered fewer than 20,000 views on X, compared to a typical 100,000.
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'Completely false'
Bournazel said he had flagged several social media posts circulating on X to Viginum, including a video falsely claiming the politician would shutter the Pompidou Centre – Paris's famed modern art museum – to convert it into a migrant reception centre.
"This is completely false," he wrote on X on Thursday evening, 10 days before the first round of voting in France's municipal elections.
The disinformation was shared by at least two accounts, Bournazel said, warning that the content could be circulating via other users and across different platforms.
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Bournazel warned of foreign interference "aimed at destabilising the electoral process or damaging the reputation of candidates".
The French government has repeatedly cautioned the public over Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe, which have grown in intensity since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to Viginum, Storm-1516 was behind at least 77 disinformation operations targeting Western countries between late 2023 and March 2025.
(with newswires)
