France: Police raid Marine Le Pen’s Front National party HQ in EU fake jobs probe | Telegraph

French police raided the headquarters of Marine Le Pen’s Front National party on Monday as part of an investigation into alleged misuse of European Union funds to pay parliamentary assistants. The European parliament has accused Ms Le Pen, a French presidential candidate and MEP, of paying FN party staff with EU funds which it says should only be spent on European parliamentary assistants. It has demanded Ms Le Pen pay back nearly €340,000 (£290,000) and, faced with her refusal to repay the money, has said it will start docking her salary in order to recover the funds. The search at the far-Right party’s headquarters in Nanterre, west of Paris, was confirmed by FN officials, who said it was the second time the offices had been raided. They accused the French judiciary of conducting a political smear campaign.

France: Foreign minister denounces cyberattacks blamed on Moscow | AFP

Suspected Russian cyberattacks on the French presidential campaign are “unacceptable”, France’s foreign minister said Sunday, adding it was clear that pro-Europe candidate Emmanuel Macron was being targeted. A spokesman for Macron, who is currently riding high in the polls, has accused Moscow of being behind a flurry of cyberattacks on his campaign website and email servers over the past month. “It’s enough to see which candidates, Marine Le Pen or Francois Fillon, Russia expresses preference for in the French electoral campaign,” Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in an interview with Journal du Dimanche. “Whereas Emmanuel Macron, who is pro-Europe, is being targeted by cyberattacks,” he added. “This form of interference in French democratic life is unacceptable and I denounce it.”

France: Marine Le Pen rival Macron targeted by hundreds of Russian hack attacks and fake news smears | IBT

The most likely candidate to win France’s May elections Emmanuel Macron has been the target of hundreds if not thousands of Russian hacks and a fake news smear campaign the head of his party has said. Richard Ferrand the chief of Macron’s independent Onwards Party has said Kremlin controlled media including Russia Today and Sputnik have engaged in a fake news campaign against the candidate. “Two big media outlets belonging to the Russian state Russia Today and Sputnik spread fake news on a daily basis, and then they are picked up, quoted and influence the democratic (process),” Ferrand was quoted by Reuters as saying. Macron has been accused by the Russian media as being part of the US global banking elite by both international facing but Kremlin backed outlets. The party official’s comments come on the heels of an interview given by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in which he claimed to have damaging information on the centre-left candidate.

France: Foreign Minister Warns Russia Over ‘Interference’ In Presidential Election | RFERL

France says it will not accept meddling by Russia or any other country in its upcoming presidential election, and that it could respond to such interference with “retaliatory measures.” The remarks by French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on February 15 come in the wake of what U.S. intelligence officials have described a Kremlin-directed campaign of hacking and public-opinion manipulation that aimed to help President Donald Trump win the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “We will not accept any interference whatsoever in our electoral process, no more from Russia, by the way, than from any other state,” Ayrault told parliament. Ayrault said France could respond to such meddling with “retaliatory measures when that is necessary.”

France: Foreign Minister warns Russia against meddling in election | Reuters

France said on Wednesday it would not accept interference by Russia or any other state in its presidential election, and would retaliate if necessary. The pledge by Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault followed complaints by the party of election frontrunner Emmanuel Macron that his campaign was the target of ‘fake news’ put out by Russian media, as well as internet attacks on its databases. “We will not accept any interference whatsoever in our electoral process, no more from Russia by the way than from any other state. This is a question of our democracy, our sovereignty, our national independence,” Ayrault told parliament. He said France would set clear limits, “including retaliatory measures when that is necessary, because no foreign state can influence the choice of the French, no foreign state can choose the future president of the Republic.”

France: Did Russia Hack French Elections? Kremlin Denies Pro-Marine Le Pen Cyberattacks, Despite Emmanuel Macron Claims | IBT

Russia denied meddling in French elections Tuesday after a top aide to French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron alleged Russia hit Macron’s campaign with hundreds of cyberattacks. Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s defense minister, said last week French intelligence agencies were attempting to fortify cybersecurity surrounding the election. The announcement followed allegations Russia intended to interfere in French elections in favor of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who is sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Intelligence agencies said they were concerned Russia would saturate the internet with bots leaving pro-Le Pen comments.

France: Defense Council fearful over Russian hacking in presidential election | The Times of Israel

The French presidency’s Defense Council’s next meeting will deal with the threat of Russian hacking in France’s upcoming presidential elections this Spring, Politico quoted the French weekly Le Canard Enchainé as reporting Wednesday. The meeting, which will include French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, as well as the ministers for defense, interior, foreign affairs, finance and the budget, will focus on Russian attempts to sway the election using disinformation campaigns and trolling on social media, as well as hacking attacks. French intelligence officials believe that Russia is working behind the scenes to support presidential candidate Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front party, according to the Le Canard Enchainé report cited by Politico.

France: Presidency to hold top-level meeting on Russian hacking: report | Politico

The French presidency will hold a top-level meeting soon to address concerns about possible Russian hacking, trolling and disinformation in the upcoming presidential election, the French weekly Le Canard Enchainé reported Wednesday. “The level of concern is such that a meeting of the defense council at the Élysée has been scheduled on this subject,” the newspaper wrote in its Wednesday edition. Le Canard Enchainé, which is known for its mix of investigative reporting and satirical writing, recently published allegations that François Fillon, the conservative candidate for president, hired his wife for a non-existent job. Penelope Fillon was allegedly paid more than €900,000 for work she didn’t carry out.

France: Facebook, Google join drive against fake news in France | Reuters

Giant Internet firms Facebook and Google joined forces with news organizations on Monday to launch new fact-checking tools designed to root out “fake news” stories in France ahead of the country’s presidential election. Social networks and news aggregators came under fire during the U.S. presidential vote when it became clear they had inadvertently fanned false news reports. Facebook , said it would work with eight French news organizations, including news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), news channel BFM TV, and newspapers L’Express and Le Monde to minimize the risk that false news appeared on its platform. Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, has 24 million users in France, more than a third of the country’s population. It will rely on users to flag fake news on its network so that the articles can then by fact-checked by its partner organizations. Any news report deemed to be fake by two of its partners would then be tagged with an icon to show that the content is contested, Facebook said.

France: Russian media leap on French presidential candidate with rumors and innuendo | The Washington Post

As seen through a Russian television set, the upcoming French elections are the dirtiest in history, a shameful public display of the cronyism and liberal decay that the Kremlin says are tearing Europe apart. “The stakes [of the election] are high, so they’re digging up kompromat on just about everyone,” said Dmitry Kiselyov, the firebrand state television anchor who headlines the country’s premier Sunday night news show. All the main candidates are tainted, he said. At first glance, his assertion makes at least some sense: Financial shenanigans abound. For starters, there is the obvious example of François Fillon, a conservative who had once been the front-runner and is now embroiled in an embarrassing nepotism scandal. His wife and two of his five children are accused of receiving roughly 900,000 euros ($986,000) in public funds for work they did not do.

France: Neighbors Sound Alarm Over Election ‘Catastrophe’ Risk | Bloomberg

Leaders in Spain and Germany voiced concern that the Europe Union faces collapse as a result of anti-establishment forces campaigning to tear down the bloc, singling out their common neighbor France as the potential trigger. Europe’s unprecedented electoral calendar, with ballots this year in France, the Netherlands and Germany — plus possibly in Italy — presents the continent’s “enemies” with the chance to wreck the EU, according to German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat. He cited Brexit’s cheerleaders among the bloc’s foes.

France: With French Socialists in Crisis, Manuel Valls and Benoît Hamon Head to Runoff | The New York Times

A furious Jean-Marc Ducourtioux shouted with his fellow union members as they banged on the plexiglass window of a meeting hall in small-town France. Inside was Manuel Valls, the former Socialist prime minister, who was campaigning for president in this bastion of the French left. A member of France’s oldest trade union, Mr. Ducourtioux, 52, was a stalwart Socialist Party voter who once might have been inside, cheering. But no longer. His hands callused by three decades as a metalworker, Mr. Ducourtioux is angry that the Socialist government has failed to stop French automakers from moving factories outside the country, as manufacturing declines in this decaying region. He said he was at risk of losing his job at an automotive subcontractor. “Mr. Valls knew the situation here,” Mr. Ducourtioux said. “He did nothing.” France’s presidential election this year is being closely watched as a barometer of European public disaffection, and no party is more visibly out of favor than the governing Socialists. President François Hollande, a Socialist, is so deeply unpopular that he is not running for re-election.

France: In Primaries, Dire Predictions for the Left | VoA News

Five years after a triumphant electoral sweep that returned it to power for the first time in a decade, France’s ruling Socialist Party is weak, deeply unpopular and ideologically divided ahead of the first round Sunday of presidential primaries. Some even warn it risks implosion. Voters are seeking other faces and parties after a leftist tenure that saw three major terrorist attacks, record unemployment and the fallout of Europe’s migrant crisis, which left its mark on the streets of Paris and in Calais’ now-dismantled Jungle camp. The far-right National Front party is widely expected to dominate the first round of presidential elections in April, reflecting a wider populist backlash in Europe and the U.S., where President Donald Trump took office Friday. “There’s a distrust, a dearth of support for the left for a number of reasons,” said analyst Jean Petaux of Sciences Po Bordeaux University. “Some believe it betrayed its leftist ideals, others that it didn’t go far enough in enacting reforms.”

France: 24,000 cyber attacks blocked amid fears that Russia may try to influence French presidential election  | Telegraph

France is to beef up cyber-security amid growing fears that Russian hackers could try to influence its upcoming presidential election following claims that Moscow orchestrated US computer attacks to help Donald Trump. Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defence minister, said French intelligence agencies were trying “to learn lessons for the future” from the allegations by their US counterparts. Mr Trump has dismissed the accusations and renewed calls for close ties with Russia. Mr Le Drian said that if the Russians had meddled in the US election, it amounted to an attack on western democracy. France and its political parties are “no less vulnerable,” he stressed. He said the risk became apparent when hackers took the French television channel TV5 Monde off air in 2015. French investigators suggested that the Kremlin was behind the cyber-attack.

France: Le Pen Struggling to Fund French Race as Russian Bank Fails | Bloomberg

National Front leader Marine Le Pen is struggling to raise the 20 million euros ($21 million) she needs to fund French presidential and legislative campaigns in 2017 after the party’s Russian lender failed, the party treasurer said. The Central Bank of Russia revoked the license of the National Front’s Moscow-based lender First Czech Russian Bank OOO in July and the party has still to find another backer, according to treasurer Wallerand de Saint Just. Saint Just said he’s seeking international financiers in countries including Russia because French banks have refused to fund his party. “The loss of the FCRB was a hard blow for us,” Saint Just said in a telephone interview. “The Russia loan was a stable resource. Now we are still searching for loans.” Le Pen’s ties with Russia have come under scrutiny in recent weeks amid reports that the CIA concluded that President Vladimir Putin directed hackers to buoy the candidacy of Donald Trump in the U.S. Le Pen is running second in the race to become France’s next president and is openly supportive of Putin’s military operations in Syria and his annexation of Crimea.

France: Election Hints at a European Shift Toward Russia | The New York Times

The victory of François Fillon in France’s center-right presidential primary is the latest sign that a tectonic shift is coming to the European order: toward accommodating, rather than countering, a resurgent Russia. Since the end of World War II, European leaders have maintained their ever-growing alliance as a bulwark against Russian power. Through decades of ups and downs in Russian-European relations, in periods of estrangement or reconciliation, their balance of power has kept the continent stable. But a growing movement within Europe that includes Mr. Fillon, along with others of a more populist bent, is pushing a new policy: instead of standing up to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, stand with him.

France: Sarkozy defeated in primary for French right’s presidential candidate | The Guardian

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s political career has been effectively ended, after he was dealt a humiliating defeat on Sunday by his former prime minister François Fillon in the first round of the race to choose the rightwing Republican party’s candidate for the presidency next spring. Fillon, a socially conservative, free-market reformer who admires Margaret Thatcher and voted against same-sex marriage, came close to winning the nomination straight out, with around 43% of the poll. He now faces a second-round runoff against more moderate Alain Juppé, the mayor of Bordeaux who was prime minister under Jacques Chirac. The divisive former president Sarkozy suffered a humiliating defeat, knocked out of the race after he ran a hard-right campaign on French national identity, targeting Muslims and minorities.

France: After US election, Russia feared influencing French vote, corroding Western values | Sydney Morning Herald

Marine Le Pen, the far-right French leader hopeful of a strong showing in next year’s presidential election, has defended borrowing from a Russian bank to fund her party – and promised closer ties between the Elysee Palace and the Kremlin if she wins next May. There are growing fears of Russian interference in the vote, after Donald Trump’s relationship with the Kremlin and Russia’s alleged role in hacking the Democratic party’s email server were hot topics in the US election. Foreign policy experts told Fairfax that Russia would benefit from “chaos” in Europe and a weakened NATO and EU, and it was not clear how far it would go to exploit the opportunities offered by next year’s presidential elections in France. Ms Le Pen admitted in 2014 that her party borrowed 9 million euros ($12.9 million) from a Russian-owned bank. Russia has also reportedly lent money to Greece’s Golden Dawn, Italy’s Northern League, Hungary’s Jobbik and the Freedom Party of Austria.

France: Candidates Warned on Cyber Risk After U.S. Election Hacks | Bloomberg

France’s cyber-security watchdog is briefing the country’s presidential candidates on hacking threats, drawing lessons from attacks that have disrupted the U.S. election campaign. As France prepares for elections less than six months after the U.S. chooses its own head of state, the National Defense and Security Secretariat will host some 30 campaign representatives Wednesday from parties including the anti-immigration National Front, the center-right Republicans and the governing Socialists. With hacking emerging as an issue in the U.S. presidential race, French security chiefs want their own politicians to know they’re also potential targets of electronic warfare. “We’ll give them technical pointers to identify attacks like those that took place in the U.S., as well as an overview of threats and how to fend them off,” Guillaume Poupard, who heads the national security agency’s cyber-defense unit, said in an interview Tuesday in Paris. He’ll host the campaign teams at the unit’s headquarters in a military compound just behind Napoleon’s tomb.

France: Far-Right Party in France Also Dreams of an Exit | New York Times

If Marine Le Pen is elected in France’s presidential elections next year, would she organize a “Frexit”? The leader of the far-right National Front party has used the term before, and she has made it abundantly clear that she thinks the European Union has been a “complete disaster,” as she put it in a speech in Vienna last week. The European Union is one of the most frequent targets of her scorn, depicted as a faceless bureaucracy bent on erasing the French nation in all of its individuality. “France has perhaps a thousand more reasons to leave the E.U. than the English,” she was quoted as saying during a gathering in the Austrian capital of representatives of far-right parties.

France: Civic Tech Platform La Primaire Wants To Help French Voters Bypass Traditional Parties | Forbes

French people, like the citizens of many other countries, have little confidence in their government or in their members of parliament. A recent study by the Center for Political Research of the University of Science-Po (CEVIPOF) in Paris, shows that while residents still trust, in part, their local officials, only 37% of them on average feel the same for those belonging to the National Assembly, the Senate or the executive. Three years before, when asked in another poll about of what sprung to mind first when thinking of politics, their first answer was “disgust”. With this sort of background, it is perhaps unsurprising that a number of activists have decided to try and find new ways to boost political participation, using crowdsourcing, smartphone applications and online platforms to look for candidates outside of the usual circles.

France: Former French President Sarkozy charged over campaign funding | New Europe

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed under investigation in a scandal over irregularities in his 2012 re-election campaign finances, dealing a serious blow to his hopes of running again in 2017. France had a ceiling on presidential campaign funding in 2012 of 22.5 million euros. The conservative Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012 and lost that year’s election to Socialist Francois Hollande, is accused of spending 17 million euros over that limit. Sarkozy, 61, was questioned all day on Tuesday by magistrates at the Paris financial prosecutor’s office before being notified that he was under investigation for “suspected illegal financing of an election campaign for a candidate, who went beyond the legal limit for electoral spending”. This means Sarkozy will be tied up in legal proceedings for months to come, making it hard for him to contest a center-right primary in November ahead of next year’s presidential election.

France: National Front Gets a Boost in French Regional Elections | The New York Times

Sunday’s election results changed the political center of gravity in France. Although President François Hollande has earned widespread approval for his handling of the terrorist attacks here, and Nicolas Sarkozy, his predecessor, is still pursuing a comeback plan to propel him and his center-right party back into power, the most significant political figure in France — some would argue the most powerful — is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right. Ms. Le Pen led her far-right National Front to a first-place finish in the initial round of regional elections on Sunday, a huge step forward in her plan to transform a fringe movement into a credible party of government.

France: Far-Right National Front Gains in Regional Elections | The New York Times

The far-right party of Marine Le Pen was poised to make major gains after the first round of voting in regional French elections on Sunday in the wake of terrorist attacks that traumatized the country last month. When the votes were counted, Ms. Le Pen’s National Front party was pulling far ahead in two of France’s 13 regions and leading in four others. Trailing were the right-leaning parties, including the Republicains, led by former President Nicolas Sarkozy. Even further behind were the Socialists, whose best-known figure is President François Hollande.

France: Prime Minister scraps pledge to let foreigners vote | Politico

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said his government had no plan to let foreigners vote in local elections, backpedaling formally on a 2012 campaign pledge by Socialist President François Hollande. The statement came as Valls’ Socialist party tried to drum up support ahead of local elections in December. Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Front party is expected to capture at least two regional council seats from the Socialists, which it accuses of letting too many migrants into the country. “That promise, in all senses, will not be implemented,” Valls said during a speech Tuesday at Paris’ prestigious Sciences Po university. “And I am convinced that it will not be proposed again during the presidential election.”

France: Court annuls far-right’s mail-in vote to drive out National Front founder | The Globe and Mail

A French court on Wednesday annulled a special mail-in vote organized by far-right leader Marine Le Pen to try to end her father’s influence on their National Front party by stripping his title of honorary president. The court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre ruled that the vote by party members, currently under way, represents a breach in party statutes. The judge said that the mail-in consultation deprived Jean-Marie Le Pen of any means of expression. It was the second court victory in less than a week for Jean-Marie Le Pen, a co-founder of the National Front, and a setback for daughter Marine, the president.

France: France considers banning MPs aged over 70 | Newsweek

France’s Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports is pondering a proposal to introduce an age cap on politicians seeking election after a government-backed report recommended it as a measure to make sure more young people were included in politics. The report made a series of recommendations including lowering the voting age to 16, limiting the number of terms which an official can serve in the houses of parliament to three, and banning politicians over 70 from standing for election. Although youth minister Patrick Kanner is considering the measures insisting they can make a positive difference, the concept of an age cap has provoked accusations of ageism from MPs.

France: Vote blunts rise of France’s far-right National Front | Associated Press

France’s governing Socialists never expected to do well in Sunday’s first-round elections, and their strategy worked just as planned: Their conservative rivals took first place. Before the elections for 2,000 local councils, the Socialists urged people to vote, hoping that turnout would blunt the rise of Marine Le Pen’s far right National Front, even if it meant Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP would be the victor. Initial projections gave the UMP party 31 percent of the vote compared with 24.5 percent for the National Front and 19.7 percent for the Socialists and their allies. Turnout was 51 percent, compared with about 45 percent in the same elections in 2011. With little air of a man in third place, Prime Minister Manuel Valls was the first to praise the far right party’s defeat. “This evening, the extreme right, even it is too high, is not at the forefront of French politics,” Valls said. “When we mobilize the French, it works.”

France: First vote since Paris attacks raises tensions | Associated Press

France’s resurgent far right is vying for a shining moment this weekend, when the National Front is facing the Socialists in an election for a vacant seat in parliament. Sunday’s vote in the Doubs region is the first electoral test since the January terror attacks. It has raised political tensions as the nation waits to see whether the party’s anti-immigration message captures more hearts than the message of unity the French government is trying to preserve. The National Front’s candidate for the seat, Sophie Montrel, warns against the “Islamic peril” in France, while her Socialist opponent, Frederic Barbier, hopes to capitalize on the unity that bound the nation after the attacks on the satiric Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a Kosher grocery store that killed 17. The trauma wrought by three radical Muslims boosted the sagging profile of Socialist President Francois Hollande. Since then, he has worked to limit a backlash against France’s 5 million-strong Muslim population and ensure that youth living on society’s margins become active members of French society.

France: National Front Party Accepts Loan from Russian Bank | VoA News

The National Front in France has admitted taking a huge loan from a bank controlled by Russia. National Front leader Marine Le Pen announced last week that her party had taken an 11-million-dollar loan from the First Czech-Russian Bank. She made the announcement during a visit to Moscow. Her admission came as the French government delayed an agreement to deliver two warships for Russia. The French president’s office said the situation in Ukraine did not permit delivery of the warships, which carry helicopters.  The ships are being built in the port of Saint Nazaire. The National Front has campaigned hard for the warship agreement to be completed. The party’s Gauthier Bouchet spoke to VOA in October. “Our position is to protect our industry, to protect our right to trade with every country that we want.”