It’s France’s Turn to Worry About Election Meddling by Russia
Nataliya Novikova, who leads Sputnik in Paris, said
that its operations there, while eager to present Russia’s take on events, did not serve Moscow but rather a French audience eager for a "different angle." Complaining that Mr. Macron and members of his staff had repeatedly ignored interview requests, she said that Sputnik tried to represent all points of view and had been unfairly branded a Russian bullhorn.
By ANDREW HIGGINSAPRIL 17, 2017
PARIS — The flagging, scandal-plagued presidential campaign of François Fillon — a former prime minister of France much liked by the Kremlin but not so much, it seems, by French voters — received a surprise lift late last month with a report
that he had staged a remarkable recovery in opinion polls and was now leading the pack ahead of voting this Sunday.
The Macron campaign’s computer system "is like a Swiss cheese," he said, open to attack not only by Russia but also by "any 15-year-old with a computer." The government has nonetheless taken the danger seriously, with Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warning Moscow
that "this kind of interference in French political life is unacceptable," and the country’s equivalent of the National Security Council in Washington holding a special meeting to discuss cyberthreats.
The broader question as France charges toward the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, however, is what exactly lies behind what looks to many, particularly
supporters of the liberal front-runner, Emmanuel Macron, like a replay of Russia’s interference in the presidential election in the United States last year.
This is the world in which RT and Sputnik have found their place." Sputnik’s report about Mr. Fillon’s surge in opinion polls, based on research by a company based in Moscow
that studies social media, got some traction online but never really took off — in part because of a swift rebuke from a French watchdog that monitors polling claims.
