Foreign Interference in Municipal Elections
During the 2026 municipal elections, phenomena of distortion or manipulation of information to influence campaigns were observed locally.
Prior to the election, the agency fighting misinformation, VIGINUM, detected initial campaigns emanating from malicious Russian actors aimed at discrediting the election itself with fabricated and sensationalist content.
Secondly, operations targeted specific candidates.
The Horizon candidate for mayor of Paris, Pierre-Yves Bournazel, was targeted by an interference operation seeking to discredit his image. Attributed by VIGINUM on March 6, 2026, to a known Russian network (Storm 1516), these operations followed on from a new foreign digital interference operation targeting the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, beginning in early February 2026, carried out by the same group and exploiting the Jeffrey Epstein case to try to discredit the head of state.
Before and during the campaign, two candidates from La France Insoumise, Sébastien Delogu and François Piquemal, were also the target of a disinformation and denigration campaign, accusing them of rape and violence by an account named “Blog de Sophie” and shared by accounts on Facebook and X. The individuals filed a defamation complaint. These operations had a physical dimension with QR codes placed on the posters of the Marseille candidate leading to defamatory content or anonymous emails sent to journalists in the region. VIGINUM revealed that the accounts used were inauthentic and bore foreign markers, suggesting the possibility of foreign manipulation. While the authors are currently unknown, Le Monde suggests that it could be a foreign company specializing in information manipulation, apparently conducting campaigns in Nigeria, Gabon, or in favor of Elnet, a pro-Israeli lobby.
The MP Renaissance Éric Bothorel referred the matter to ARCOM for suspicion of foreign interference targeting the X platform (formerly Twitter). Studies showed that the platform’s algorithm heavily favored far-right candidates. Thus, the mayoral candidate for Paris, Sarah Knafo, allegedly benefited from much greater visibility than her opponents on this platform, due to a more significant amplification of her content. These manipulation risks also exist on Wikipedia. Pages dedicated to candidates have sometimes been at the center of real battles, mostly led by the candidates’ teams, to favorably modify the pages of their champion or unfavorably those of their opponents. Acting under pseudonyms, the authors are difficult to identify, and foreign manipulations could easily infiltrate this practice.
Finally, Nice’s mayor, candidate for re-election, Christian Estrosi, discovered on February 27, 2026, a pig’s head hung on the gate of his building, accompanied by an insult and a Star of David. The individual accused the far-right movement, which he associated with billionaire Pierre-Edouard Stérin, a claim denied by the latter. While the investigation seems to indicate that it could be a matter orchestrated by his own team to either help or smear him, at this stage, it appears unlikely to be foreign interference: the case nevertheless reveals an evolution in political battles and media propaganda as the affair resembles in its codes and modus operandi the interference operations conducted by Russia in France in recent years. The confusion among voters and the political class can only increase with these types of manipulations, whether domestic or foreign.
