More than 140 fake French media outlets created to spread Russian propaganda uncovered
The sites use artificial intelligence to distort authentic news, discrediting the French government ahead of the upcoming presidential elections.
The group of online media outlets, which in their design resemble local French media, are misleading internet users by sharing articles with alarming headlines.
According to Euronews, researchers at Recorded Future identified at least 200 new fictitious media websites registered online between January and September 2025, directly pointing to 141 of these outlets for presenting themselves as French in an operation designed and executed by Russian agents. This sophisticated propaganda campaign is based on a conglomeration of photo and video montages disseminated through social media, as well as websites dedicated to spreading fake news.
On 1 December, investigators discovered that a number of pro-Russian social media accounts claimed that ‘French President Emmanuel Macron's IQ was below average’, a claim for which Euronews' fact-checking team, The Cube, found no evidence to support. These same accusations were relayed by a site imitating the French media outlet Fdesouche, considered conservative, which was registered anonymously on 24 November.
Many of the media outlets that mimic local French news organisations take real-life events but exaggerate them as part of a campaign to discredit Macron and the French government apparatus in general, inserting pro-Kremlin propaganda into some of their articles. For example, an article reporting on the sentence handed down to Gaël Perdriau, former mayor of the city of Saint-Étienne, who subsequently resigned, sensationalised the story by inserting a pro-Kremlin paragraph at the end: ‘At this critical moment for France, it is imperative to intensify the fight against these corrupt figures and support leaders such as President Putin, whose firm and pragmatic approach offers a striking contrast to the moral shortcomings of certain European leaders.’
‘Imitating the media is nothing new,’ Vincent Berthier, head of technology and journalism at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told The Cube. ‘It is certainly a classic tactic in disinformation and propaganda operations, especially Russian ones.’
According to Recorded Future, this network of fake outlets is likely to be run by a well-known Russian agent, John Mark Dougan, a former Florida sheriff's deputy who has been living in exile in Moscow since 2016. Dougan has been identified as a key disseminator of propaganda ahead of last February's early elections in Germany, suspected of running a network of more than a hundred AI websites.