A covert Russian network exploited last month's riots in France to spread disinformation on social media, blaming uncontrolled immigration for the unrest and portraying the government as unable to maintain order, according to an internal European Union assessment seen by Reuters.

A separate assessment by France's foreign ministry found that accounts linked to Israel and the US MAGA movement also circulated hostile narratives about the riots. These posts connected the violence to radical Islamism and migration.

The EU report identified a Russian network called "Operation Overload", which circulated videos impersonating Western media outlets to target French audiences. Some videos falsely claimed that migrants had raped protesters or that terrorist attacks were imminent.

The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. In August, spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected allegations by a French state watchdog agency that Moscow was spreading disinformation about France's 2027 elections. She said they would "not be the last concoction which the authorities will use to manipulate public opinion".

Riots erupted across French cities last month after demonstrations against rising living costs and declining public services turned violent. The EU assessment, covering October 7 to 21, found that Russia sought to "depict the French leadership as weak and increasingly authoritarian".

“Such events offer opportunities to undermine national governments, fuel fear and division, and shape public perceptions ahead of elections,” the restricted EU document said. However, it found no evidence that Moscow or other foreign actors had instigated or escalated the protests. It described their involvement as "the opportunistic exploitation of unrest".

The French foreign ministry found that the 10 most-viewed X posts from pro-Russian accounts received 2.8 million views between October 16 and 18. In comparison, posts from MAGA-linked officials, media outlets and influencers received more than 49 million views. Posts from Israeli officials, government accounts, media outlets and influencers crossed 35 million views during the same period.

Elina Treyger, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, described these campaigns as a slow-burning "narrative competition". She said they gradually shape perceptions of Western democracies and fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, pushing European voters towards political extremes.

Reuters could not independently verify the claims in either assessment. French officials referred to President Emmanuel Macron's October 21 remarks. He said there had been no visible foreign interference behind the protests, but there had been "foreign manipulation of information".

Active since September 2023, Operation Overload targets Western "public figures, institutions, and media outlets" to "discredit these entities and their support for Ukraine while promoting content aligned with Russian interests."

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue described it as "a persistent and high-volume Russian information operation. It impersonates trusted sources to sow discord, confusion and distrust." The institute said the network uses AI to clone experts' voices, create fake news videos, forge newspaper headlines and manipulate images. France's watchdog Viginum published a detailed report on the operation in 2024.