France confirms investigation into Israeli firm's election disinformation campaign
France's interior minister vowed legal action after Viginum, the government's anti-disinformation agency, said an Israeli private company ran a disinformation campaign targeting pro-Palestinian candidates during March municipal elections. Deputy head Anne-Sophie Dhiver told lawmakers Wednesday the firm targeted candidates from hard-left party France Unbowed, though she said the operation had little traction and the sponsor remains unknown. The allegations follow similar accusations in Slovenia and come as France Unbowed lawmaker François Piquemal seeks to invalidate his runoff loss in Toulouse over the alleged interference.
France's interior minister Laurent Nuñez vowed "legal action" on Wednesday after the government's anti-disinformation agency, Viginum, said an Israeli private company ran a disinformation campaign targeting pro-Palestinian candidates during March municipal elections.
Anne-Sophie Dhiver, Viginum's deputy head, told lawmakers Wednesday that "a private company based in Israel that specializes in selling online destabilization services" had run the campaign, which "in particular" targeted candidates from the hard-left party France Unbowed. Dhiver said Viginum could not identify who had sponsored the operation and added that the disinformation attempts "didn't get much traction" during the campaign.
France Unbowed lawmaker François Piquemal, who advanced to the runoff in the Toulouse mayoral race but lost in the second round, was among those targeted. Piquemal said Wednesday he would try to have the results of the second round invalidated over the alleged foreign interference, denouncing what he called "facts of extreme gravity for our country's sovereignty" and warning such efforts could threaten the integrity of next year's presidential election. He also asked whether the government would summon "the Israeli ambassador to ask for an explanation."
Nuñez, responding to Piquemal in parliament, confirmed that unspecified legal proceedings were underway over an "obviously malicious" foreign interference campaign, with false information shared by "clearly inauthentic" social media accounts whose posts "were amplified using artificial intelligence." Nuñez did not identify the culprit or say if the Israeli ambassador would be summoned over the affair.
Separately, French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Wednesday summoned Israel's envoy to France over a video post by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in which Ben-Gvir was depicted taunting detained activists from another flotilla attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.
The allegations follow accusations by Slovenian law enforcement earlier this year that an Israeli private intelligence firm helped leak recordings to influence the election in Slovenia in March. Nuñez and Dhiver said a full report on the alleged interference would be published at a later date.