At the beginning of February, a fake site impersonating the media France Soir claimed that documents recently made public on Jeffrey Epstein showed the involvement of Emmanuel Macron, on the basis of false emails. The online misinformation, very quickly dismantled, was described by French sources as an operation of Russian interference. The operating mode is reminiscent of the Russian Storm-1516 operations.

Published on: 06/02/2026 - 18:06

The "Epstein files" were certainly exploited by Russian disinformation: on February 6, several French media, including BFMTV and Agence France-Presse, indicated "from government sources" that France had "detected" a Russian disinformation operation online.

The aim of the operation in question: to make people believe, from a false information site, in the involvement of the President of the French Republic in the Jeffrey Epstein affair. The false information in question, distributed mainly on the social network

False quotes from a non-existent email

Since January 30, a new round of documents published by the American State Department on Jeffrey Epstein, a sex criminal who died in prison in 2019, has implicated several European personalities, including the former French Minister of Culture Jack Lang.

On the other hand, no revelation of this nature concerns Emmanuel Macron at this stage. The French president is mentioned a little more than 200 times in these three million documents - made up in particular of thousands of emails - but none establishes a close link between him and Jeffrey Epstein.

Read alsoHow Russia uses the controversies of the Epstein affair for its propaganda

So what do we know about this disinformation operation, spotted and dismantled on February 4 by several observers on X, including the collective monitoring Russian operations Gnida Project? That day, a fake online site called france-soir[.]net, with an address deliberately close to the media site francesoir[.]fr, published an article (link archived here) with a raunchy title: "'He likes them younger': Jean-Luc Brunel's shocking remark about Macron".

The title would refer to an alleged email conversation between Jeffrey Epstein and the Frenchman Jean-Luc Brunel, who died in 2022 in prison and known to be one of the main touts of the American child molester. According to the article, emails revealed by the American authorities would shed light on Emmanuel Macron's inclinations for "young" men and his probable participation in an evening in Paris with Jeffrey Epstein in 2017.

According to the false article, Jean-Luc Brunel allegedly claimed, in an email sent on May 20, 2017 to Epstein, that Emmanuel Macron, then just elected president, wanted to "organize a party on avenue Foch", where Epstein's apartment was located. Before adding: “I’ll bring a few boys…He likes them young.”

On In addition to relaying the link to the fake site, he also relays a one-minute video which repeats the same accusations.

But very quickly, the publication, viewed several hundred thousand times, was accompanied by a community note, that is to say a comment added by Internet users to recontextualize the false information (see below).

Because a simple search on the site made available by the American justice system reveals that such an exchange does not exist in the file. The site, which lists all the documents from the Epstein affair and provides access to a keyword search, does not display any of the emails denounced in the false article. And this, whether by analyzing the exchanges between Brunel and Epstein or by searching for the file number of these supposed emails.

A few hours after the publication of the article, the France Soir site also denounced the usurpation of its name and visual identity by the fake site, in a press release broadcast on X.

An operation strongly reminiscent of the Russian Storm-1516 operating mode

What about the origin of this false information, attributed to Russian actors by the French authorities? Although our editorial staff was not able to directly link the fake site to a specific structure, this false information is still strongly reminiscent of the modus operandi of the Russian disinformation operation “Storm-1516”.

Fake information site created from scratch, fake article and fake video, usual disinformation relays: the methods of this operation, now active since 2023, have been documented and publicly attributed to Russia by numerous analysts, including the French interministerial service for vigilance and protection against foreign digital interference VIGINUM or the company specializing in cybersecurity Recorded Future.

Among other characteristic elements, we find the creation of a false site developed only a few days before the dissemination of false information. A search on the domain name of the fake france-info[.]net site makes it possible to determine that the site, now inactive, was created on February 1, three days before the publication of the false article.

Another characteristic element: the identity of a real journalist who works at Le Parisien, Victor Cousin, was also usurped, as the latter denounced in an article published on the website of his media. Warned by Viginum on February 5, the journalist said he realized that his name had been usurped in 91 articles published in his name since December 3.

These usurpations of domain names and journalists are reminiscent of several similar operations carried out in recent months and already documented by the editorial staff of France 24 Observers, notably during the elections in Moldova, a vote particularly targeted by Russian propaganda.

Also readHow to recognize a disinformation site generated by artificial intelligence?

Asked by our editorial team about the origin of the operation, VIGINUM also estimated "with a high level of confidence" that this fake site corresponded to the informational modus operandi of former American police officer John Mark Dougan. Exiled in Russia since 2016 and become one of the main figures of Russian disinformation targeting European countries, John Mark Dougan is the one who "records and maintains part of the digital infrastructures of the Storm-1516 informational modus operandi", according to Viginum.

No attempt at “characterized” interference in municipal elections to date

According to the interministerial service specializing in foreign digital interference cited by several media, Storm-1516 would be responsible for at least 77 information operations against Western countries including France, between its appearance at the end of 2023 and March 5, 2025.

But beyond the structure and activity of these operations, the question of their real impact in the public debate arises. Concerning the falsehood about Emmanuel Macron, the main publications which spread the false information have accumulated a few hundred thousand views, a figure which is also potentially artificially inflated. These accounts, mostly from pro-Russian circles, also quickly saw their post accompanied by notes from the community specifying that it was false information.

This communication from the French authorities comes against a backdrop of concern about possible foreign interference in future elections, particularly concerning the French municipal elections of March 2026.

In its bulletin of February 6 intended to alert on potential foreign interference in the context of the future municipal elections of March 2026, the election coordination and protection network (RCPE), recently formed around entities such as Arcom or Viginum, however indicated that it had not noted, to date, "any attempt or operation of foreign digital interference specifically targeting the 2026 municipal elections".

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