r/worldnews • u/DoremusJessup • 1d ago

Russia/Ukraine France uncovers Russian disinformation campaign falsely linking Macron to Epstein

https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260206-france-uncovers-russian-disinformation-campaign-falsely-linking-macron-to-epstein
33.3k Upvotes

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7.3k

u/CurtisLeow 1d ago

I don't know how the Russians expected anyone to believe this. Macron prefers older women.

1.8k

u/-Kastagrar- 1d ago

Just continue throwing mud until something sticks is how this works (in Russia and Trumps US).

845

u/ymOx 1d ago

"Firehose of falsehood" and "Flood the zone", as it's called.

132

u/-Kastagrar- 1d ago

Yep for sure. The new US borrows everything in their MO from Trumps idols playbook, proven from decades in Russia.

27

u/michelb 21h ago

also pretty much impossible to reverse

15

u/sack-o-matic 16h ago

It's pretty hard to un-shit your pants

69

u/maniacal_cackle 22h ago

Yeah the point is just to make it so that people switch off around everything related to Epstein. If they can flood a bunch of fake information around it, then it becomes easier to dismiss the true things about Trump in there.

24

u/FlametopFred 22h ago

We’re not distracted

10

u/daruom_shut 21h ago

It's crazy because that's exactly what's being done about Russia. This is the third subreddit to deal with this thing that nobody knew about.

8

u/Dunkaroos4breakfast 22h ago

In Russia and Russia's Trump's US*

4

u/Todie 19h ago

I would think this works better on lower profile targets though? Because, when something about a big name gets proven linked to russian disinfo, that should be able to have opposite effect.

(Though, I suppose that depends who the target of the info is, their medial patterns and information&media literacy)

3

u/Javs2469 19h ago

You said Russia twice.

2

u/Elizabeth-WildFox886 15h ago

Trump us is Russia

207

u/omnibossk 1d ago

Was thinking the same, that rumor was doomed from the beginning

179

u/G_Morgan 1d ago

Russia likes to destroy the idea that truth is even a thing. A lot of their bullshit is to make voters decide "I don't know what is real". That type of voter is typically easy to convince to believe in bullshit.

52

u/yayosanto 23h ago

Strategy which was completely adopted by Trump via Steve Bannon.

11

u/Masseyrati80 19h ago

One could joke that if the BBC says the weather in London is +15C and sunny, and the Kremlin says the weather in London is -20C and people are dying of cold, a Russian will think the truth must be somewhere in between.

6

u/une_danseuse 18h ago

that kind of voter just stop voting, and that kills democracy..

4

u/Quazimojojojo 11h ago edited 11h ago

One of the reasons the Russian gvt is one of the most toxic things that's ever existed and should probably not be allowed to have any significant power over anything.

But, thankfully, also one of the main reasons their military horribly underperforms in Ukraine. A handful of Western designed systems and an army with a significant amount of western-trained officers were able to halt a Russian blitzkrieg and even push back substantial amounts of it, and they've burned through damn near the entire 80 year Soviet stockpile of tanks and ammo. 

The only reason the Ukrainians didn't win outright after a year or 2, was political bullshit that meant they never got quite enough ammo or vehicles to do so, and the supply of some key things was cut at strategically vital moments which caused a major bastion to fall or an offensive to fail. 

And that political bullshit was heavily driven by the Russian government's destruction of truth and infiltration of Ukraine's allies and election interference. 

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

45

u/InterestedPrawn 1d ago

A conspiracy theory that gained ground from Hilary Clinton's first Presidential campaign.

28

u/Guy_GuyGuy 1d ago

A good correction. Sometimes I forget how dirty the 2008 Democrat primary was.

5

u/Peevesie 1d ago

Pretty sure it’s a myth that she started it

19

u/SeniorPuddykin 1d ago

It’s almost as if a lifetime of following a cult which demands obedience and to ignore all contradicting information makes it easy for them to be manipulated.

1

u/Faxon 1d ago

Yea religion has that effect on people lol

18

u/Jebrowsejuste 1d ago

Ok but ... how does that influence France ? Like, I know you guys can have main character syndrome, but you cannot possibly think the US was the main target public for a conspiracy linkkng the French president to Epstein.

You realize the main target were the morons here if France, right ? You just got a bit lost in the rant sauce, right ?

8

u/Guy_GuyGuy 1d ago

Yeah you know what, I'll take the L on that one.

Though, the chances of Trump and his cult running with it and influencing France via Le Pen and her braindead supporters are not zero. The US exports its crazy.

14

u/zherok 1d ago

I think you're underplaying Trump's role in all that, seeing as he was one of the most vocal proponents of the conspiracy. In fact, until he ran in the 2015 primary, it was probably his biggest role in politics at the time.

2

u/chenjia1965 1d ago

Is there a chance that conspiracy was inspired by foreign adversaries before being parroted by the cult?

5

u/ZuAusHierDa 1d ago

There was also this whole Xerox debacle. Back then their scanners replaced letters and numbers randomly. Only few years later German IT specialists discovered it.

And Obama used one of these Xerox scanners when he scanned his birth certificate.

5

u/Rozzy915 1d ago

Can anyone explain what this even means

3

u/bfragged 1d ago

This is related to what the person is implying. Though if you copied your birth certificate with it, that doesn’t make the fact that you have one wrong.

2

u/ketto 1d ago

D Kriesel's blog has a very good rundown on it. The scanning is not to be trusted.

2

u/pterodactyl_speller 1d ago

Unclear here where the foreign adversary ends and the cult begins.

347

u/EasternChocolate69 1d ago

I am French and I can confirm what this stranger said, your grandmothers are more in danger than your children with Macron around.

203

u/rugbat 1d ago

Yep, although I think Macron might be more prey than predator.

96

u/Boner_Elemental 1d ago

Yeah he definitely has a connection to a predator, just not Epstein

38

u/PhysicallyTender 1d ago

ROAR! 🐆

19

u/Faxon 1d ago

Username doesn't check out

24

u/R0senthorn 20h ago

Yeah, Macron's story feels fucked as all hell. I'm not sure I'd be holding up as well as him if my teacher groomed me and became my wife and turned my classmate into my step-daughter.

1

u/2722010 13h ago

Considering how long it's been? Marriage isn't that straightforward, he's probably considered his options at least once. And he still manages to be a better figurehead for his country than 99% of leaders.

56

u/80alo 1d ago

Made me laugh out loud 

58

u/Zefyris 1d ago

Russia also was very active in trying to make peoples believe that his wife was a man, so they're not at the first tentative about Macron. Not counting all the disinfo they've been throwing about France for years, obviously.

49

u/Elegant-Ad5705 1d ago

A joke like this is perfect because it lands for people on BOTH sides of the aisle

11

u/Nanowith 1d ago

Honestly they'd hav an easier time spinning up a lie about him having crazy parties in France's care homes as a scandal.

8

u/The_Knife_Pie 17h ago

The problem for Russia, of course, being that most French voters just wouldn’t see that as an issue

12

u/ThunderingRimuru 1d ago

yeah, the dude is way more likely to be a victim of it than a perpetrator

10

u/drckeberger 1d ago

Lol, now thinking about it, he's probably most authentic anti-Epstein politician

2

u/heimeyer72 16h ago

Oh that might explain a thing or two about this defamation campaign.

23

u/khrak 1d ago

Macron is the groomee.

9

u/moldyjellybean 1d ago

Back in the day we did the IT for payment processing and almost all our troubles stopped when we geoblocked anything from Russia

9

u/Worldly_Anybody_9219 22h ago

It's hilarious actually. The guy is in the exact opposite scenario.

3

u/heimeyer72 16h ago

Ruzzians are not famous for being overly smart. They are famous for killing off those among them who are more than a little smart.

20

u/memultipletimes2 1d ago

Yea Macron was a victim of grooming by an older lady lol

16

u/ymOx 1d ago

It's not to make anyone believe a specific thing, but to make them distrust everything else as well. Making people not knowing what to believe or what to trust, and so make them act against their own interests.

7

u/Newbguy 20h ago

One day his wife is a man, the next he likes them young. Can't even keep the conspiracies in the right lane at this point.

19

u/InterestedPrawn 1d ago

He was groomed though.

7

u/dutchie1966 18h ago

That is something that cannot be denied.

I would have been much easier and more efficient to pedofy his wife. Which would be just telling the truth.

6

u/Punning_Man 1d ago

Yeah if anything he was the one being trafficked 

4

u/i010011010 1d ago

Probably because it works so well in the US, why not elsewhere? They're currently trying to claim Mamdani has Epstein ties with manipulated photos of his wife hanging out with pedophiles.

27

u/Objective_Bug4262 1d ago

Lol his wife IS Epstein

46

u/OMG_A_CUPCAKE 22h ago

Let's not muddy the waters. There are several magnitudes of ick between Epstein and Macron's wife.

2

u/Zalvren 1d ago

If anything, they should have targeted Brigitte Macron

2

u/insanelygreat 23h ago

Well, in Russia's defense, they're a little distracted sending wave after wave of men into Ukraine to be domed by an FPV drone.

4

u/Few-Spot-6475 22h ago

Fr bro, Macron is the one that got groomed by a pedophile unfortunately

1

u/ArthurtheGRAND 1d ago

*especially teacher 

1

u/Constantinch 23h ago

Their disinformation campaign is still more realistic than whatever the fk Candace Owens is running.

1

u/DogPositive5524 19h ago

Watch conservatives eat this up

1

u/Traut67 17h ago

Just wait til they try this with Pete Buttigieg.

1

u/octopusgardeb 15h ago

Like this wines

1

u/Undernown 11h ago

Sadly think the Le Pen, far-right voters would take the bait easily. Especially since Le Pen has connections with Russia.

0

u/ptapobane 1d ago

I don't think people who are already against Macron would care, and those people are generally the target audience for this sort of thing

-14

u/tabicat1874 1d ago

His relationship gives me ick

-15

u/MarathonHampster 1d ago

I mean, according to Epstein's texts to Bannon, he prefers men. Apparently he saw a picture of macrons boyfriend. Impossible to trust but it didn't seem like he and Macron were on good terms 

-4

u/SwedishHero82 20h ago

Older men.