France probes Russian disinfo campaign against centrist candidates

French prosecutors have opened a probe into a suspected Russian disinformation campaign targeting centrist candidates in next year's presidential elections, the office of the Paris prosecutor said on Tuesday.

The French government is deeply wary of the risk in the 2027 polls of Russian interference aiming to put a more Kremlin-friendly candidate in the Elysee against the background of the war against Ukraine.

Prosecutors are probing deepfakes and fake video reports posted on social media targeting the main two centrist candidates -- the former prime ministers Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal, the office of the Paris prosecutor told AFP.

It had already opened a probe into a disinformation campaign against left-wing politician Raphael Glucksmann who has yet to formally declare but is widely expected to stand.

The fabricated content appeared on X in posts impersonating legitimate French media outlets and falsely claimed that Attal had Parkinson's disease and that Philippe had contracted an illness.

Glucksmann was meanwhile targeted through false information about his partner, the star news anchor Lea Salame who presents the main evening news programme on France 2 TV.

A security source, asking not to be named, said these operations have remained low-profile for now. But they are the first since the start of the campaign to directly target contenders for the Elysee.

The move by prosecutors "demonstrates that judicial authorities are taking seriously the gravity of these digital interference tactics and the need to protect the integrity of the democratic debate they seek to distort," Attal's legal team said Tuesday.

"It is fundamental to state this simple fact: we cannot allow Vladimir Putin's Russia to manipulate the 2027 presidential election -- an election that is existential for the French people," said Glucksmann.

France's Viginum watchdog attributed the campaign targeting Attal with a "high degree of confidence" to the pro-Russian "Matryoshka" network.

A security source said another Russian-linked propaganda network, Storm-1516, was behind the campaigns targeting Glucksmann and Philippe.