One year before the presidential election which will appoint his successor, Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday April 16 a bill to protect French elections “against foreign interference”. “The government will have to present a bill and regulatory measures to improve the protection of our elections against foreign interference,” declared the head of state in front of several hundred mayors gathered at the Elysée.
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These interferences “have sometimes affected you”, he told the newly elected councilors in the municipal elections in March. They also “affected many of our neighbors”, he added, in an allusion to the recent elections in Moldova, Romania, but also in Germany. In its sights: Russia, which “massively purchases millions of fake accounts during the election period”, as Emmanuel Macron had already mentioned in February.
“We are going to fight at European level to ban these fake accounts. Europe must be the first territory where they are banned,” he insisted on Thursday. Promising to “take a whole series of texts to better protect the democratic debate from the vicissitudes of social networks”, the French president also wanted to “regulate speech on social networks, in particular the possibility of purchasing this speech during electoral periods”.
Read the analysis | Article reserved for our subscribers Municipal elections, possible targets of foreign interference
Originally published at Almouwatin.com
