The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on Tuesday May 26 to shed light on possible foreign interference during the last municipal elections. The section responsible for military affairs and attacks on the fundamental interests of the nation will have to “investigate whether the campaign of certain LFI candidates (…) could have been targeted by an operation in the interest of a third state”.
Which candidates were targeted?
The Insoumis candidates concerned by this possible interference operation would be Sébastien Delogu in Marseille, François Piquemal in Toulouse and David Guiraud in Roubaix.
“You take your car and you see a (billboard) panel with your name and a QR code which refers to false accusations of rape,” Sébastien Delogu told the press last Wednesday.
François Piquemal, for his part, spoke of “the creation of pages on social networks peddling the worst rumors”, as well as “the disclosure” of his “social network passwords”. He also denounced the distribution of false campaign visuals, including on the online resale site Vinted. According to Sébastien Delogu, all three were targeted because of their “commitment to the Palestinian cause”.
Where are the suspicions directed?
The investigation concerns in particular facts of “intelligence with a foreign power”, “diversion of voters’ votes through false news or fraudulent maneuvers” and “online apologia for terrorism”, with “regard to certain logos used”.
According to a source close to the matter, this smear campaign was carried out from Israel. The newspapers Libération and Haaretz mentioned the involvement of two companies based in the country, including BlackCore, based in Tel Aviv.
Me Xavier Sauvignet, one of LFI’s lawyers, denounced “offices in Israel, in connection with a certain number of people close to those in power, as well as Israeli spying and counter-espionage services”. The Paris prosecutor’s office, however, recalls that “the notion of interference does not target the interests of a foreign person or company, but of a foreign state, and no suspicion of an intervention of this type” has been “reported to it”.
The Paris prosecutor’s office indicated that it had opened this “initiative” investigation. This will integrate elements from separate procedures already carried out in Marseille and Toulouse.
This decision follows the publication, on March 10, of a report by Viginum, the service responsible for combating the manipulation of online information. This bulletin, devoted to a “suspicion of foreign digital interference” targeting the 2026 municipal elections, mentioned an “artificial or automated dissemination device to propagate manifestly inaccurate or misleading content”.
Viginum claims to have identified an “informational mode of operation”. Websites and social media accounts “presenting characteristics of inauthenticity” targeted “in particular a French political party and more specifically certain of its candidates in the municipal elections”. The report notes in particular the existence of images generated by artificial intelligence, dates of creation of similar accounts as well as technical traces of foreign origin present in the metadata.
The State service also believes that “this malicious campaign, involving an actor located abroad, is likely to harm the fundamental interests of the Nation, to the extent that it deliberately seeks to alter citizens’ information”. Viginum, however, qualifies the impact of this operation, citing a “marginal effect on the digital public debate”. Finally, the service believes that this campaign could also pursue a lucrative objective, without wanting to destabilize the electoral process.
