France’s foreign minister has accused Elon Musk of using his social media platform to orchestrate “massive online harassment campaigns” against European leaders as he took aim at foreign efforts to destabilise the country before next year’s presidential election.
Speaking at an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development conference on Tuesday, Jean-Noël Barrot pointed to the role that social media had come to play in the global battle over democracy. “The forces seeking to undermine democracy now dominate the information landscape, where they employ tactics designed to polarise public debate,” he said.
The result was that “political movements with authoritarian aims”, which “play right into the hands of democracy’s declared enemies”, had been gaining ground in Europe and North America, he said.
“They exacerbate the polarisation of our societies,” he added. “Their ultimate goal is clear: to seize power and then create the conditions to never relinquish it.”
Barrot cited the ۲۰۲۷ presidential election in France, where the far-right leader Marine Le Pen is the frontrunner in the polls. “The enemies of democracy are doing everything they can to destabilise us,” he said. “They exploit our divisions and use immigration, secularism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to stoke hatred and tensions.”
He listed several other examples, from an unnamed Israeli company accused of creating fake French social media accounts to influence perceptions of the Israel-Gaza war, to accusations that Azerbaijan stirred up tensions amid deadly riots in the French Pacific territory New Caledonia.
Barrot also singled out Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of the social media platform X. “There are massive online harassment campaigns launched by Elon Musk against European leaders in order to influence debates by exploiting the virality of his social media platform.”
Musk did not reply to a request for comment.
Barrot also cited the protests that have rocked France in recent weeks, as schoolchildren, students and trade unionists blockaded schools and marched through cities. The events, said Barrot, had been exploited by “hostile narratives” from Russia, China and Iran, as well as those associated with the Maga movement in the US.
Last week Musk and the US president, Donald Trump, weighed in on the protests in France, seeking to recast them through a lens of mass migration and brushing aside protesters’ demands for better school conditions.
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Barrot said his government was working to respond to a reality in which paid or commissioned influencers sought to explore the viral reach of digital platforms. “The Kremlin’s goal is explicitly stated: to put an end to our liberal democracies in favour of a new authoritarianism. Other actors are converging on this goal, seeking to dictate to Europe which democracies are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad’ based on whether they align with their own interests,” he said.
The French minister’s remarks come days after the British prime minister, Andy Burnham, said it was “clear” that Russia had interfered in the Brexit referendum.
Barrot said his government would work to counter these efforts by foreign entities. “We are uncompromising, because it is clear to us that they undermine the nation’s fundamental interests,” he said. “We do not tolerate any foreign interference, from wherever it may come. It is a matter of sovereignty.”
