France has detected a Russia-linked disinformation effort alleging President Emmanuel Macron’s involvement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a government source told Agence France-Presse on Friday, February 6. France’s Viginum agency, which counters foreign disinformation campaigns, detected on Wednesday the operation involving a fabricated article “accusing President Emmanuel Macron of being involved in the ‘Epstein affair’,” the source added.
The fabricated article was posted on a site fraudulently using the identity of a French media organization, France-Soir, said the source, adding that the Storm-1516 project spreading fabricated content was behind the operation. According to the source, “Viginum attributes this site with a high degree of confidence to the CopyCop information operation.”
CopyCop is linked to John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive living in Russia. The latter “maintains part of the digital infrastructure of the Storm-1516 information operation,” the source added. On X, the first account to share the video was “@LoetitiaH, a long-standing and frequent relay for Storm-1516 information operations,” the source added.
The video content was then “picked up and amplified by numerous other accounts monitored by Viginum,” said the source. However, “visibility does not mean impact,” the source added, noting that “this operation is very similar” to other Storm-1516 operations seeking to target political figures.
On Wednesday, France-Soir sought to distance itself from the fabricated report. “The website http://france-soir.net has no connection with France-Soir,” it said.
