European countries’ flags fly at the European Parliament on April 23, 2024, in Strasbourg. The European election will take place on June 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP
France has urged social media platforms to increase monitoring of disinformation online in the run-up to the European Parliament elections, a Minister said on April 24.
Jean-Noel Barrot, Minister for Europe at the Foreign Ministry, said two elements could possibly upset the poll on June 9: a high rate of abstentions and foreign interference.
His warning comes as French officials have repeatedly cautioned over the risk of disinformation — especially from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine — interfering with the polls.
To fight absenteeism, France is launching a vast media campaign to encourage its citizens to get out and vote.
As for disinformation, a new government agency mandated to detect disinformation called VIGINUM is on high alert, Mr. Barrot said.
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The junior Minister said he had urged the European Commission to help ensure social media platforms “require the greatest vigilance during the campaign period, the electoral silence period and on the day of the vote”.
He added he would be summoning representatives of top platforms in the coming days “so that they can present their action plan in France… to monitor and regulate” content.
VIGINUM head Marc-Antoine Brillant said disinformation had become common during elections.
“Since the mid-2010s, not a single major poll in a liberal democracy has been spared” attempts to manipulate results, he said.
“The year 2024 is a very particular one… with two major conflicts ongoing in Ukraine and Gaza which, by their nature, generate a huge amount of discussion and noise on social media” and with France hosting the Olympics from July, he said.
All this makes the European elections “particularly attractive for foreign actors and the manipulation of information,” he said.
Mr. Barrot mentioned the example of Slovakia, where September parliamentary elections were “gravely disturbed during the electoral silence period by the dissemination of a fake audio recording” targeting a pro-EU candidate.
A populist party that was critical of the European Union and NATO won and has since stopped military aid to Ukraine to fight off Russian forces.
