According to a propaganda narrative circulated in the Russian media, the French are calling on their government to stop its policy of sanctions against Russia and also stop supporting Ukraine because the interests of its citizens must come first. The thesis is substantiated only by quoting one far-right politician.
NEWS: “In recent months, the standard of living in France has fallen dramatically, and the assistance given to Ukraine at the expense of the country causes discontent among the French. This opinion was expressed by a French politician, the leader of the Popular Republican Union, François Asselineau, quoted by RIA Novosti.
On his Twitter account he asked a simple but very widespread question, namely whether the sanctions against Russia are worth continuing?
It should be noted that the French regularly criticize the authorities for the sanctions policy. The president is also criticized. The French are sure that the leader must give priority to the interests of the citizens of his country”.
NARRATIVE: The French reject the policy of sanctions against Russia and the assistance provided to Ukraine.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The Russian state media constructed this propaganda narrative based on a classic method of generalizing the opinion of a pro-Kremlin politician as if it were shared by all citizens of a state. The one quoted this time is François Asselineau, a far-right politician, a supporter of the Putin regime, and also a promoter of the idea of France leaving the EU and NATO. .
The Popular Republican Union has never had members in parliament or in the local councils, and François Asselineau was voted in the 2017 presidential election by only 0.92% of the voters . After this failure, he did not participate in the presidential elections of 2022. His point of view and that of his party are not representative of French society. This politician has posted lots of false Kremlin narratives on his Twitter account, writing, for example, in October, that Zelensky was the author of a genocide against Russian speakers and criticizing Macron for supporting “a Nazi regime”.
Based on these views expressed by Asselineau, very close to the pro-Kremlin narratives, the Russian press wrote that all French citizens criticize the authorities and do not understand why the anti-Russian sanctions are continued and why Ukraine is still supported. In reality, one of the electoral messages of President Emmanuel Macron, re-elected this year, was about the support for Ukraine and not allowing the war started by Russia to spread. Also, according to a survey published at the end of September, 62% of the French support the policy of sanctions against Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine.
The thesis that governments should do more for their citizens than for Ukrainians is not new; In fact, Veridica identified it in the first days of the war in an online campaign against Ukrainian refugees carried out in the Republic of Moldova.
Veridica has also debunked a number of false narratives aimed at manipulating public opinion and present positions critical of Russia as supportive and in solidarity with it. In July, Russian propaganda was “proving” that US scholars support Putin’s ideas about Ukraine. In October, the Russian media wrote that foreign diplomats are fleeing Kyiv for fear of the Russian offensive. Various fake news have also been released about the Government in Kyiv, which has voiced mistrust in its Western partners, or about terrorists trained on EU territory with a view to launching attacks against the civilian population in Donbas.
