Authors:
Saman Nazari, Alliance4Europe.
This Flash report was made possible through a collaboration facilitated by the Counter Disinformation Network (CDN).
What is the ISAC?
The CDN is an initiative to create a collaboration between European organisations and independent researchers to monitor attacks against the EU elections. Participants range from civil society organisations, universities, think tanks, journalists, independent researchers and fact-checkers. Our community consists of more than 30 organisations and 70 individuals.
Note: this report contains un-archived links. We have found no reliable way to archive Facebook links.
Summary:
Between April 29 and June 7, 2024, the Facebook page “Musulmans de France” posted 14 unlabelled political ads targeting French voters (1).
The page uses ads to discredit France in relation to the Israel-Hamas war and their alleged bad treatment of Muslim minorities.
In total, the ads reached 59k users on Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Audience Network. The page itself has 1.3k followers. Between March 20 and June 10, the five ad-boosted posts got around 25k likes, 720 comments, and 620 shares altogether.
The two accounts administering the page are from Mali according to Facebook’s transparency centre.
Page Description
The Facebook page Musulmans de France (Muslims of France) was created on April 16, 2024, and is administered by two accounts based in Mali (2). The page shares the same name as a political party in France (3) but has no known affiliations with them.
Image 1: Transparency centre showing the two Mali-based users administering the page.
The first ad that the page ran was paid for by the page Actualités et Infos en Afrique, which is also a page that Musulmans de France has liked.
Images 2 and 3: Ad purchased by a page that is also liked by Musulmans de France
Actualités et Infos en Afrique was created in January 2022 as “Les actus régionales en France” (Regional news in France) before it was renamed in February 2024.
An article in Burkina24 discusses a social media agency called “SMM and Development Agency in Africa”, which employs a team in Mali, that is running pages promoting Macron. The article lists a few of the agency’s pages and argues that it is likely that they are also running other similar pages, listing “Les actus régionales en France” (4) as one of the potential other pages they are running.
It is unknown if this page is affiliated with SMM and Development Agency in Africa. Considering the nature of the content being posted not having any commercial applications, the origin of the page’s administrators, and the page running ads, it is likely that there is a commercial actor behind who is getting funded from an external source. If it is the same actor running the pages, they may have received a new contractor to instead discredit Macron.
Ad Content
One of the ads just promoted the page itself as a Portal for Muslims in France (5).
The ads mostly describe Macron as Islamophobic and discrediting his government’s treatment of Muslims (e.g. 6, 7, 8), including claiming that France will send soldiers with African and Maghreb heritage to Ukraine first before sending Frenchmen.
The ads also discredit Macron’s economic policy (9) and claim that the U.S. is responsible for the collapse of France and Europe by encouraging Europe to support Ukraine (10)
Another ad claims that immigrants from Africa and Mahgreb are sent to Ukraine but also used to build the Olympic facilities, which the ads claim are not safe for workers. The ad further claims that the workplace damages and war casualties of “illegal immigrants” are ignored, and not included in official statistics (11).
Two of the ads also depict Macron making an enemy of Azerbaijan for their support of the people of New Caledonia (12, 13).
Three of the ads also claim that Macron is supporting the genocide against the Palestinian people (14, 15), one of which also claims that Macron is violating French Muslims’ right to protest (16).
One of the ads also calls upon the recognition of Palestine and criticises Macron for not doing so (17).
The latest ad published paints Zelenskyy as a war-monger and Macron as a “puppet” who disregards the well-being of the French population to follow the United States and send troops to Ukraine (18).
The ads use different obfuscation techniques, such as blurring out parts of words or adding spaces between words.
The language used in the ads is not grammatically correct, indicating that they are not written by a French native speaker.
Narratives in the ads
- Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Sentiment:
Image 4: First ad on the page. The second ad is identical – Discrimination against Muslims.
- Exploitation and Marginalization of Immigrants:
- Narrative: Immigrants, especially from Africa and the Maghreb, are exploited and marginalized by the French government.
- Evidence: an ad claims that immigrants are sent to Ukraine and used for unsafe construction work, their workplace injuries and war casualties are ignored in official statistics (22).
- Discrimination:
- Narrative: France prioritizes sending soldiers of African and Maghreb heritage to Ukraine before French citizens.
- Evidence: Ads assert that France will send soldiers of African and Maghreb heritage to Ukraine first (23).
- Olympic Facility Safety Concerns:
- Narrative: Immigrants are used to building unsafe Olympic facilities, risking their lives without their accidents being recorded in statistics.
- Evidence: Ads claim that Olympic construction work is unsafe and that injuries and fatalities among immigrant workers are not properly acknowledged (24).
Image 5: ad mentioning immigrants from Africa and Mahgreb and Olympics safety concerns.
- Call for Recognition of Palestine:
- Narrative: There is a demand for the recognition of Palestine, criticizing Macron’s reluctance to do so.
- Evidence: Ads call for the recognition of Palestine and criticize Macron for not recognizing it (25).
Image 7: Palestine related ad.
- Allegations of Genocide and Human Rights Violations:
- Support for Azerbaijan and New Caledonia:
- Narrative: Macron’s antagonizes the Muslim population of Azerbaijan for supporting New Caledonia.
- Evidence: Ads suggest that Macron is actively against the Azerbaijan Muslim population for supporting the people of New Caledonia. The ads draw a parallel with the alleged support of Macron for the genocide of Palestinians (29, 30).
Image 6: New Caledonia-related ad.
- Economic Policy and U.S. Influence:
- Narrative: Macron’s economic policies are detrimental to France, influenced by the United States, leading to the collapse of France and Europe.
- Evidence: an ad criticises Macron’s economic policy and blames the U.S. for encouraging Europe to support Ukraine, which purportedly harms French and European stability (31).
- Political Puppet of the United States:
- Narrative: Macron is depicted as a puppet of the U.S., prioritizing American interests over the well-being of the French population.
- Evidence: Ads portray Macron as subservient to the U.S., following their directives, particularly in the context of sending troops to Ukraine (32),
- Zelenskyy as a War-Monger:
- Narrative: Zelenskyy is portrayed as a war-monger, and Macron is criticized for supporting him.
- Evidence: The latest ad depicts Zelenskyy as a war-monger and criticizes Macron for being a puppet of the U.S. in this context (33).
Image 8: latest ad published by the page – Accusing Zelenskyy of being a war-monger.
Non-ad Content analysis.
Between March 20 and June 10, the page mostly focused on the Israel-Gaza war (e.g. 34, 35, 36, 37, 38), sharing posts in support of Palestine. The page also regularly shares articles related to Islamic practices from the websites ajib.fr (E.g 39, 40, 41, 42, 43) and oumma.com (E.g. 44, 45, 46, 47, 48).
The page has also made two posts calling people to go and vote during the European Parliament elections (49, 50).
As the name of the page indicates, the page is targeting Muslim populations in France with content and narratives that could be attractive to them while trying to create negative sentiment.
Analysis
These narratives collectively paint a picture of Macron as a leader who is not only discriminatory and hostile towards Muslims and immigrants but also a figure who undermines the well-being of his own nation to serve foreign interests, particularly those of the United States. The portrayal of Macron as a puppet leader, coupled with accusations of supporting human rights violations and failing to protect vulnerable workers, seeks to undermine his legitimacy and moral authority both domestically and internationally.
The meta-narratives emphasize broad themes of discrimination, exploitation, economic mismanagement, and subservience to foreign powers, while the sub-narratives provide specific examples and contexts, such as the treatment of immigrants and France’s foreign policy stances, to reinforce these broader claims. This approach aims to erode public trust in Macron’s leadership by appealing to various grievances and concerns within the population.
Reach
Between March 20 and June 10, the page’s regular content (not advertised content) usually got between 1-10 interactions.
During the same period, the five ad-boosted posts got around 25k likes, 720 comments, and 620 shares altogether.
Objectives and Behaviours – DISARM Red Framework:
The Facebook page’s likely objective is to Smear their political opponents.
The key manipulative behaviours employed by the page include:
Conceal network identity – the page seems to hide its true identity and affiliations.
Create Personas – Identifying itself as a group of French Muslims while seemingly primarily operating from Mali.
Deliver Ads – Using ads to reach their target audience without revealing the ads’ funding source.
Manipulate Platform Algorithm – At least 10 ads launched by the page were edited to make the text harder to machine-read, most likely to avoid detection by Meta’s algorithms.
Recommendations and actions taken
Code of Practice on Disinformation Rapid Response System was used to flag the case to Meta on 11/06/2024.
Further investigation into the page is needed to determine for sure who is operating it.
Some indicators point towards a foreign actor being involved, such as the administrators being based in Mali.
Name and shame – highlight the page’s attempts to manipulate the French population without highlighting the content.