The recent explosion of violence in France has been a raw and unsettling spectacle, a summer of tear gas, burning barricades, and shops emptied by looters that has left many French citizens feeling as if the country is teetering on the edge of something dangerous. The streets of Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and other cities have echoed with the sounds of clashes between police and protesters, and the images have ricocheted around the world within seconds. But while much of the anger is genuine, rooted in deep social tensions and real grievances, European regulators are now asking whether part of the chaos is being deliberately amplified by hidden hands. In Brussels, officials are urgently examining whether foreign online interference and disinformation campaigns have helped turn public rage into a networked crisis. Their worry is not simply about bots or fake accounts, but about the possibility that algorithms are being weaponised, pushing violent content to the top of feeds and turning isolated incidents into a coordinated-looking wave of unrest. Security officials say pro-Russian and far-right social media accounts, many of them already known from previous disinformation operations, have been circulating violent videos and inflammatory messages in an attempt to sow more chaos. Iran and Algeria are also suspected of involvement in some of the messaging, according to experts. An EU official expressed the central concern with remarkable bluntness: “We want to know how co-operative the platforms are. It is possible that Russian information campaigns are happening, but platforms should not algorithmically amplify them.” The deeper question is whether social media companies, in their relentless pursuit of engagement, have become unwitting accomplices to those who want to destabilise European democracies from within.
For researchers who study disinformation, the fingerprints of familiar influence networks are all over the recent unrest. David Colon, a researcher at Sciences Po who specialises in the field, points to pro-Kremlin influencers linked to the Russian campaign known as Storm-1516, as well as to a Russian influence network called Matryoshka, as having played a significant role in amplifying the events and spreading a number of false narratives. These operations did not invent the protests, and they did not create the underlying anger, but they have been highly effective at turning real footage into viral propaganda, often stripping it of context or falsely claiming it was recorded in France. In some cases, videos of protests in Georgia, Algeria, or other countries have been recycled and presented as evidence of a collapsing French state, gathering millions of views and fuelling a sense of impending civil war. Colon is careful, however, not to overstate the influence of these actors. The pro-Russian influencers, he stresses, are “not at the origin of the demonstration, nor have they had an impact on the course of the events.” This is a crucial nuance, because it helps explain why governments are so uneasy: they can see that foreign actors are operating in the information space, but proving that those actors directly caused street violence is another matter entirely. The more these false narratives circulate, the more they blur the line between reality and manipulation, and the harder it becomes for ordinary citizens to know what is actually happening in their own country. For people who are already angry and distrustful of institutions, this kind of online chaos can feel like confirmation that the system is rigged, and that only extreme action can make a difference.
Governments across Europe are now scrambling to determine how active foreign intelligence agencies may have been in stoking the violence directly. In France, inquiries have been opened and intelligence agencies have been asked to investigate whether Russian agents played a more hands-on role in encouraging people to take to the streets and engage in looting. So far, the evidence is inconclusive. One senior European intelligence official said there was no concrete evidence of such provocations, describing Russian disinformation efforts as mostly reactive and confined to online platforms. The official added, however, that French investigations are still in their early stages, and no one is yet ready to rule out anything. In Italy, where violent protests also erupted over the weekend, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto took a more alarmist view, blaming the unrest on a “hybrid war that someone is waging on our nations through unconventional tools called TikTok, social media and YouTube without the west realising it, or even reacting.” His words reflect a growing fear among European officials that they are losing control over their own information ecosystems. In response, the European Commission has begun meeting with French authorities to discuss cooperation with social media platforms, including Elon Musk’s X, which has allowed racist and violent messages to go viral. Belgium, where protests also turned violent, was likewise set to discuss the role of China’s TikTok, according to an interior ministry spokesperson. Regulators are also asking online marketplaces such as Amazon and Vinted to block the sale of goods that appear to have been looted, hoping to cut off the financial incentive for theft and to prevent the chaos from becoming a black-market economy.
The scale of the problem can perhaps best be understood through a single viral video. The Financial Times identified an X account with just 5,000 followers that posted a video of protesters throwing fireworks into police lines. The clip was viewed almost 6 million times, a staggering amplification that suggests the platform’s algorithm treated it as extremely engaging content. But the footage was not recorded in France at all; it was shot during protests in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2024. This kind of decontextualised, false content is dangerous not only because it misleads viewers, but because it feeds a narrative that the situation in France is far worse than it actually is, which can in turn inspire copycat actions and deepen polarisation. Vinted, a popular platform for second-hand goods, said it had taken “immediate action” since the weekend to take down listings related to looting, noting that the sale of stolen goods on the platform is “strictly prohibited” and that it was “actively collaborating with law enforcement and the French authorities.” X, Instagram, TikTok, and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment, which itself says something about the difficulty of holding these powerful companies accountable. According to the EU’s diplomatic service, France is the second most targeted country in continental Europe after Ukraine for state-backed information manipulation. This is a striking statistic, because it means France, a founding member of the European Union and a nuclear power, is effectively a frontline in a new kind of shadow war. Russian agents have even staged physical provocations in France before: in 2023, people suspected of being Russian agents sprayed blue Stars of David around Paris, evoking memories of the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. The graffiti was initially portrayed as an antisemitic incident, but the disinformation watchdog Viginum later said its aim was to sow divisions and inflame tensions.
Beyond Russia, there is growing concern about the influence of Iran and Algeria. David Colon says there are indications of Iranian and Algerian influence operations in France, making the information landscape even more complex and confusing. He specifically mentions Shahin Hazamy, a Franco-Iranian influencer whose accounts are suspected of having links to Iran. Hazamy is currently appealing against a sentence by a first-instance court for condoning terrorism, related to posts in support of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group designated as a terrorist organisation by the European Union. During the recent protests, he posted various videos about the French riots, including footage of police officers beating up protesters, and one of those posts received 4 million views on X. For many inside the intelligence community, this cross-border connection is deeply worrying because it shows how foreign actors can use the grievances of marginalised communities to stoke unrest. Hazamy, for his part, strongly denies being a foreign agent, and says these accusations are themselves being spread by individuals with ties to foreign states, including the United Arab Emirates and Israeli lobby groups. “My political stance in support of Palestine is routinely exploited to discredit me,” he said, adding that he is an independent journalist. This standoff illustrates just how murky the information environment has become: even those who study and expose disinformation can find themselves painted as agents of a foreign power. Meanwhile, intelligence officials say that authorities are looking in particular at far-left groups that appear to be the driving force behind many of the outbreaks. Weaponising such movements is “part of the playbook” of foreign state actors, one official said, but he stressed that for now the simplest explanation remains homegrown political radicalism. The far left in France has a long history of street militancy, and they know exactly how to turn a protest into a battle.
For all the alarm, European officials are also urging restraint and humility. They warn against falling into the trap of blaming every riot and broken window on foreign conspiracy, because that would both distort reality and let domestic politics off the hook. Another European intelligence official put it well: “You have an authentic mobilisation of people who are angry at institutions because of their proper grievances, and foreign state actors try to amplify this. Their role should not be overestimated. It would be much too simple to say this was the fault of the Russians.” This is a delicate balance for governments to strike. They want to protect their democracies from foreign interference, but they also need to address the genuine anger and inequality that drives people into the streets in the first place. The European Commission has said that, for now, the situation is being managed by national authorities, but Brussels will step in if the risk becomes “systemic” and online platforms fail to co-operate. On Monday, the Commission met French media watchdog Arcom, and on Tuesday representatives of all member states’ authorities responsible for digital enforcement met to discuss the next steps. Cooperation between police and online platforms to identify violent protesters or looters is also on the table, raising its own questions about privacy and civil liberties. But the core demand from Brussels is clear. As Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier put it: “Platforms must make sure that their algorithms are not misused in such a context. This includes any attempt to amplify such violence and incidents. Violence that is happening offline must not be algorithmically amplified or incentivised online.” In the end, the crisis is a test not only of French society, but of the integrity of the digital public square. If the algorithms that govern what millions of people see can be gamed by foreign interests, then every protest, every act of police violence, and every moment of unrest becomes a raw material for manipulation. The question is whether European democracies can protect their citizens from being exploited without losing sight of the human beings at the centre of it all.