EU finds no evidence of foreign interference in unrest in France and Italy

The European Union has found no conclusive evidence that the unrest in France, Italy, and other European countries was provoked by foreign governments.

This was reported by Euronews, citing EU representatives.

“We have no information and no definitive confirmation that foreign information manipulation is behind the events in France and other countries,” an EU spokesperson told Euronews.

Brussels’s position diverges from the assessments of several national leaders, who blamed the violence on external interference. Protests over the cost of living and the state of public services escalated into nationwide unrest in France on October 17 — some of the worst in decades. According to Reuters, smaller-scale protests also took place in Belgium, Portugal, and Italy.

Leaders differ on who is to blame

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking during a visit to Qatar, said there was no evidence of foreign interference in the events themselves, but that foreign information manipulation had taken place in their aftermath. He also mentioned “AI-generated images showing scenes that never happened,” but provided no further details, according to the Associated Press.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto went further. On October 20, he stated that the unrest in Milan was the result of a “hybrid war” being waged through “TikTok, social media, YouTube.” He did not specify who he believed was behind it, The Independent notes.

National regulators — France’s Arcom and Italy’s AGCOM — asked the European Commission to launch a formal investigation under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The European Commission deemed the evidence insufficient and did not activate the crisis response mechanism provided for under the law, Euronews reports.

Not a cause, but a pretext for manipulation

According to Euronews, networks behind the Russia-linked campaigns Doppelgänger and Operation Overload used the violence to boost their online activity. At the same time, unlike the migration crisis in Ceuta this summer, the protests appear not to have been provoked by foreign actors, but merely exploited by them for their own purposes.

A study by the NGO Alliance4Europe, reported by Il Foglio, covered 547,471 posts. It found that Doppelgänger bots on the social network X published 639 coordinated messages in four languages between September 2 and October 14, attempting to redirect French discontent over the rising cost of living against Ukraine. According to the same study, Iranian state media Press TV and IRNA devoted between 34% and 37% of their French-language coverage to the unrest. Media outlets close to the Algerian government were sharply critical of Macron’s handling of the protests.

According to Il Foglio, the Financial Times, citing European officials, reports that Brussels is examining possible disinformation from Russia, Iran, and Algeria. European Commission spokesperson Tom Regnier stressed, however, that national authorities should play the primary role.

“Let the French authorities do their work first. We are ready to help as much as we can,” he said, as reported by Euronews.