France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ramped up its fight against disinformation with “French Response”, an official X account which replies to trolls and fake news with humour, irony and provocation.
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The account has amassed more than 180,000 followers since its creation in September, taking aim at disinformation peddled by pro-Russian users and US accounts. Meanwhile, White House-aligned accounts have increasingly targeted France on X in recent months.
According to ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux, France has decided to shake up its strategy to actively combat disinformation.
“The intuition was that you can’t win the information war if you don’t fight the battle. So we had to raise our voice,” Confavreux told Euronews.
“We have changed our stance, with a rapid reaction to foreign informational attacks against us, so that we can re-establish a form of dissuasion, in other words by exposing the ridiculous, the big tricks or the big lies”, he said.
“We’re using the codes of social networking with a virality that will enable us to increase our audience and reach precisely those who hear only manipulated information.”
The account combines sarcasm and meme language in its responses to what it identifies as trolls and disinformation. The ministry reported that the account generates approximately 15 million impressions weekly.
The account’s first post responded to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that Hamas withdrew from hostage negotiations immediately after France announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
French Response posted a timeline showing Israeli officials had reported the collapse of talks before President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement.
The account has also defended the EU’s investigations into X, responding to claims that the probes constitute “censorship” of freedom of expression.
“Judicial scrutiny should be a welcome spotlight, not something to run from,” the account stated in a February post that garnered more than 1 million views.
“European interests are often the target of misinformation. The Digital Services Act, a European regulation which aims to make digital platforms more accountable, is also frequently targeted by disinformation,” Confavreux explained.
Asked about the risk of legitimising the techniques used by trolls by using them for diplomatic purposes, he said: “We will respond to trolls, but we are not trolls ourselves.”
In another recent public spat, French Response took aim at a pro-Russian account named “Loetitia” sharing a viral video featuring doctored email exchanges that implicated Macron in the latest tranche of the Epstein files.
As part of the campaign, a false article sharing the same allegations was also posted on a website impersonating the fringe French outlet France-Soir.
In a tongue-in-cheek post, French Response moderators responded to the X video.
“It turns out that Loetitia holds global secrets. It turns out that AI puts them into images. It turns out that the France Soir article does not exist. It turns out that Russian networks are amplifying it directly,” their reply said.
France’s diplomatic communications shift has not been restricted to its French Response account.
In May 2025, the Élysée’s official X account responded to a pro-Russian disinformation campaign which alleged that French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer were caught taking cocaine on their trip to Kyiv.
The Élysée shared a meme mocking allegations that the leaders had a bag of cocaine and a snuff spoon on their meeting table — stating that “misinformation” was being used to “pass off a simple tissue as drugs.”
Experts warn about ‘trolling tactics’
Ruslan Trad, an expert in global security at the Digital Forensic Research Lab, warned: “When official diplomatic channels adopt trolling tactics, they implicitly validate the information ecosystem’s descent into provocation-based discourse”.
He added that matching adversaries’ tone risks “creating equivalence in audiences’ minds between democratic institutions and disinformation actors.”
It is unclear whether the account could reach the most vulnerable segments of the population, particularly given the rising distrust of institutions in France and across the continent.
A 2025 study by the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, Cevipof and the Institut Montaigne found that distrust of institutions and politicians alike has increased over the past year. Separately, 62% of French people believe they should “be wary of what the media say about the major issues of the day,” according to a 2025 survey.
“What counts is not so much the number of followers that ‘French Response’ accumulates, but the number of engagements,” Confavreux retorted. “These posts need to be seen, particularly by those who are the target of these manipulations.”
