Three French political figures running in the 2027 presidential election, Gabriel Attal, Edouard Philippe, and Raphaël Glucksmann, have been targeted by Russian disinformation operations.
Viginum, the French state agency tasked with combating foreign digital interference, attributed the attack against former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal with high reliability to a network known as Matriochka. Attacks targeting former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann were linked to a second group called Storm-1516.
The campaigns used fabricated media content to discredit the politicians. The operation targeting Attal falsely claimed that the former prime minister was ill. The campaign against Philippe falsely accused him of making statements he never uttered, while Glucksmann was targeted by a fake journalistic investigation.
Tactics and network operations
Carole Grimaud, an information science researcher and Russia specialist, said the networks create fake media outlets and newspapers carrying false information. She explained that the videos recycle older scandals and rumors that previously targeted other political figures, reattributing them to new targets to give the claims a veneer of credibility.
Grimaud added that broadcasting content in English allows the networks to target the reputation of French politicians beyond national borders on an international scale. A French state source told 20 Minutes that while Matriochka creates fresh accounts specifically for each campaign, Storm-1516 relies on previously identified amplifier accounts reused across multiple operations, noting that the two groups do not necessarily share the same operators or resources.
Storm-1516 is operated by Russian military intelligence, the GRU, according to the state source. Viginum previously reported in 2025 that Storm-1516 had conducted dozens of campaigns across France and other Western countries since 2023. Matriochka takes its name from traditional Russian nesting dolls.
Limited reach and impact
Despite the activity aimed at discrediting the French political class, experts say the actual impact of the campaigns remains limited. The fake videos and articles are primarily shared by bot accounts with artificial view counts, leaving the number of real viewers exposed to the content uncertain.
Grimaud noted that public attention surrounding the operations may be overstated because there are no measurable fallout effects from the campaigns. The state source acknowledged a paradox in publicizing the attacks, noting that news coverage risks giving additional reach to operations whose organic audience is small, though operators may still succeed in sowing doubt among the public.
