Several left-wing candidates in France were allegedly targeted by a “private company based in Israel.”
PARIS — France’s interior minister vowed the country will take “legal action” after a government agency said it had uncovered evidence that an Israeli firm ran a disinformation campaign aimed at pro-Palestinian candidates during municipal elections in March.
Anne-Sophie Dhiver, the deputy head of Viginum — France’s agency for fighting online disinformation — told lawmakers Wednesday that “a private company based in Israel that specializes in selling online destabilization services” had “in particular” gone after candidates from the hard-left political party France Unbowed, which puts the Palestinian cause at the heart of its political agenda.
Dhiver added that Viginum couldn’t identify who had sponsored the operation and said the disinformation attempts didn’t get much traction during the campaign.
Her remarks came after reports from Reuters, Haaretz and Libération that 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.
The allegations come on the heels of accusations by Slovenian law enforcement earlier this year that an Israeli private intelligence firm had helped leak recordings designed to influence the election in Slovenia in March.
The Israeli Embassy in Paris did not respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.
Piquemal, who was arrested by Israeli authorities last year alongside activist Greta Thunberg on a so-called Freedom Flotilla attempting to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza, said Wednesday he would try to have the results of the second round of the Toulouse race invalidated over the alleged foreign interference.
During questions to the government in parliament later in the day, Piquemal denounced what he called “facts of extreme gravity for our country’s sovereignty” and warned such efforts could threaten the integrity of next year’s presidential election in France.
He also asked if the government would summon “the Israeli ambassador to ask for an explanation.”
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez responded by confirming that unspecified legal proceedings were underway over an “obviously malicious” foreign interference campaign that had taken place during the election, with false information being shared by “clearly inauthentic” social media accounts whose posts “were amplified using artificial intelligence.”
Nuñez did not, however, identify the culprit, nor did he say if the Israeli ambassador would be summoned over the affair. But 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.
Nuñez and Dhiver said a full report on the alleged interference would be published at a later date.
Océane Herrero contributed to this report.