Tracking the disinfo on Macron's 'cocaine use' in Ukraine
One post, by a French far-right activist, quickly spread across the internet after being picked up by US conspiracy theorists and making its way to Russia's leadership.
The posts on various social media platforms shared actual footage of Macron, Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the Kyiv-bound train last Saturday.
As Merz and Starmer arrive in the compartment, Macron is seen removing a white tissue from the table. The posts claimed, inaccurately, that the tissue was a bag of cocaine.
Pictures and video taken inside the train by AFP and other media showed that the white object was a crumpled tissue.
The conspiracy-laden posts nevertheless accumulated tens of millions of views worldwide.
On Sunday, Macron's office dismissed the rumour as "fake news... being spread by France's enemies".
France has repeatedly warned about Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe that have grown in intensity during Moscow's war on Ukraine.
A 'crowd phenomenon'
This latest attack built on previous claims among conspiracy theorists that Macron has a cocaine habit.
As Justin Poncet, a specialist in online analysis, told AFP, some of the accounts attacking Macron have nicknamed him "powdered".
One security source said that French-language accounts started the rumour before it passed to Russian-language accounts and was picked up by senior officials in Moscow.
US conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones, with the large audience he commands, helped amplify the message.
Antibot4Navalny, an online collective tracking trolls farms that spread disinformation, conducted its own analysis.
"'Macron, Merz and Starmer were doing coke together on the train' is UNLIKELY a Russian disinfo campaign," the collective posted on X.
"Kremlin-aligned Telegram channels and online media did AMPLIFY it," it added. "But the earliest viral tweets were likely first published BEFORE that, by authentic users."
The attack on Macron was not one that was widely coordinated, said Poncet. But he added: "We're talking about several spheres" but only connected to each other in a fleeting way.
Together however, they turned online rumour into a "crowd phenomenon", he said.
'Little white bag'
Tracing any such viral smear to its source is difficult.
But one diplomatic source said that the French authorities had on Saturday found a comment on an X account under a video on Macron's train trip suggesting there were little white bags on the table.
That was reposted on French-language X accounts with screen captures of the video showing the three leaders, said one security source.
The spread of the rumour had picked up pace by Saturday evening.
At 7:46 pm the French-language RadioRoma account was sharing the video, asking about the "little white bag" Macron was "hiding from the camera".
A subsequent post from that account on the same subject picked up 3.4 million views and was shared 5,000 times over three days, AFP noted.
The account is owned by Louis Bopea, formerly a senior figure in France's far-right National Rally who is particularly active online.
Many of his followers helped spread the rumour.
'Enemies of France'
By midday on Sunday, far-right French politicians such as Florian Philippot and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan had joined the hue and cry. ("What is Macron hiding?!" posted Philippot.)
In Moscow, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova picked up the ball, as did Kirill Dmitriev, a senior envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Jones was successfully sued for defamation by families of the victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
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