France manipulated the outcome of the Romanian elections, according to a false narrative appearing in a publication affiliated with the extremist AUR party.
NEWS: The Romanian elections were heavily overshadowed by foreign interference. France's role, disguised as "European advice," turned into a brutal mechanism for influencing the political game in Bucharest. Instead of letting the Romanian people decide freely, foreign powers dictated who was allowed to enter the decisive round and who had to be removed from the race.
This interference shows how fragile European democracy is. In theory, states are free and sovereign. In practice, the big capitals give the orders, and Brussels provides the "legal" cover. Romania thus becomes a testing ground where the will of the people is nullified by backroom deals.
Democracy no longer means the people's vote, but diplomatic agreements, economic interests, and political pressure. Citizens are rightly asking themselves: what is the point of going to the polls if, in the end, the result is rewritten in foreign offices?
The European illusion is beginning to crumble. And the real question that remains is: how many Romanians still believe that their vote counts, and how many will finally understand that freedom and sovereignty are won through courage, not through orders from outside?
NARRATIVE: France dictated who would enter the decisive round and influenced the outcome of the Romanian elections.
PURPOSE: To promote Russian propaganda against France, to undermine confidence in the European Union and NATO, to provoke and amplify tensions and anti-establishment social movements.
The fight continues, but we are changing opponents.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: As always, we will begin by confirming that the first sentence of today's analysis is 100% true. Yes, the elections in Romania were "heavily overshadowed by external interference" – only it was not France. It was Russia that financed a veritable ecosystem of manipulation of the Romanian electorate, a fact confirmed by the authorities in Bucharest . Through a large-scale hybrid war , still ongoing, Russia aims to continuously shape public opinion in Romania, destabilize the decision-making capacity of the authorities, and dilute the degree of cohesion among the population, according to the results of a large-scale investigation conducted by the General Prosecutor's Office in recent months.
Returning to the material analyzed, we can easily see that "French interference in the Romanian elections" became one of the the Romanian sovereignists’ favorite topics, almost immediately after Donald Trump won the US presidential election. From that moment on, the US went from being the primary enemy of Romanian independence to becoming the guiding light of the local freedom fighters. The disappearance of the imperialist enemy had to be compensated for, however, because a fight without an opponent is no longer a fight, but merely patriotic ranting, delusional and illogical. To avoid the embarrassment of a confrontation with a now weakened and very old George Soros, a Germany where the far right seems to be gaining ground, or a European Union about which the disinformation has been somewhat exhausted, the propaganda laboratories and communication departments of the Romanian patriots quickly identified a new adversary – France and its leader, Emmanuel Macron. The narrative started almost simultaneously, from two directions.
The first claimed that the 2024 presidential elections had been canceled and Călin Georgescu's candidacy in 2025 had been banned on the orders of Paris. In response to these allegations, both the Central Electoral Bureau and the Constitutional Court of Romania clearly stated that the cancellation of the elections and the subsequent invalidation of Călin Georgescu's candidacy were the result of internal legal issues—incompatibilities, suspicions regarding financing, promotion of extremist organizations, etc.—and not the result of any orders from outside Romania. For their part, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French Embassy in Bucharest issued official statements denying any interference and reaffirming their support for free and democratic elections in Romania. The tirade against the French president can also be explained by the fact that Emmanuel Macron was the first Western leader to state clearly that Russia had manipulated the presidential elections in Romania . In an interview given at the beginning of the year, Macron stated that Russia "poses an existential threat to Europeans, given its actions in various areas."
The second was based on statements made by Pavel Durov, founder of the Telegram messaging app, who accused the French secret services of asking him to block "conservative voices" in Romania. However, Durov did not present any evidence—documents, recordings, correspondence, etc.—to support his claims. The DGSE (French foreign intelligence service) officially rejected the accusations, explaining that the only requests made to the founder of Telegram, as well as to other platforms, concerned the monitoring and removal of terrorist content and child pornography, not political topics. In addition, Durov is under judicial supervision in France in investigations into the use of Telegram for illegal activities, a context that raises serious questions about his credibility and interests. Moreover, Durov's accusations against the DGSE came after Western intelligence services (including the French) reported Russian influence campaigns in Romania aimed at eroding trust in democratic institutions and Western partners. At the end of May 2025, the Romanian intelligence services SRI and SIE had to categorically deny a false report about the visit of the head of French intelligence, Nicolas Lerner, to Bucharest before the second round of the presidential elections.
The disinformation had also been launched by Durov, but from that moment until now, no official document or logbook from the French or Romanian air transport authorities has appeared in the public domain confirming that Nicolas Lerner was in Romania during the period mentioned. For a better understanding of the context, we recall that on the day of the parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova, on September 28, the same Pavel Durov accused the French intelligence services of asking him to censor his application and some voices in the Republic of Moldova in exchange for help in his trial in France. We cannot help but notice, as did the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, that although according to his own statements the alleged request from the Paris authorities had been made about a year ago, "Durov likes to make accusations while elections are underway."
In conclusion, we recall that initially even George Simion, the AUR candidate for president, acknowledged his defeat in the second round of the elections and congratulated Nicușor Dan on his victory . Later, however, Simion challenged the validity of the elections at the Constitutional Court and started a veritable war of disinformation and fake news against France and Emmanuel Macron, whom he had also criticized during the election campaign on French television. Although the television station is considered to be close to the French far right, Simion was ridiculed by its journalists for his statements.
Finally, we cannot fail to mention the anti-democratic rhetoric of the article, which proclaims the futility of voting – "what's the point of going to the polls?" – and incites, not very subtly, to revolt – "freedom and sovereignty are won through courage" – a sign that the motivation behind the accusations levelled at France is much deeper and actually seeks to forcibly change the regime in power in Romania, much as the delusional leader of the sovereignist movement, Calin Georgescu, had planned.
Russia + France = Hate
CONTEXT: Russian propaganda attacks on France continue to multiply by the day, and this is linked to the fact that Moscow perceives France as its "main adversary in Europe," according to statements by Vladimir Putin himself. This explains why, in Romania, France has suddenly become the "colonizer" imposing its "imperialist" policies on Bucharest. This has led to the emergence of several pieces of disinformation and fake news in the public sphere, such as the claim that France legalized pedophilia , that French mercenaries had infiltrated the Romanian Gendarmerie to make reprisals against supporters of former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu more effective, or the narrative that France is the "mastermind" behind the desire to keep the war in Ukraine going and is calling for European troops to be sent to the front. A month ago, pro-Russian MEP Diana Șoșoacă promoted a blatant piece of fake news claiming that US Vice President JD Vance had urged Romanians to revolt in order to free themselves from colonial France.
In fact, through this arsenal of fake news and disinformation, propaganda aims to destabilize the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Alliance, with France being the country in command of NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group in Romania and, at the same time, together with the United Kingdom, co-chairing the "Coalition of the Willing for Ukraine."
The website 60m.ro is part of a “network of lies” , coordinated by the extremist group AUR, whose representatives frequently promote fake news and disinformation aimed at manipulating the public opinion in order to demonize the current political class which, in collusion with the collective West, is allegedly threatening the very existence of the Romanian people and seeking to destroy the country. The model is reminiscent, in tone, themes, and language, of the Russian discourse , which fuels the justification of Moscow's aggressive policy.
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