A report linked Russian military intelligence to the creation and radicalization of riots in France

An investigation by the Ukrainian organization InformNapalm identified Russian military intelligence as possibly responsible for a covert operation aimed at influencing the riots that shook France during October. The report identifies Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Nemich, linked to the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), as one of those responsible for coordinating instructions to radicalize the riots

.

The document is based on a series of emails that InformNapalm claims to have obtained and attributes to Nemich, who would have used the pseudonym Nikolai Nemov.

The investigation was carried out together with members of the 256th Cyber Assault Division and the analytical group Ukrainian Militant.

Among the instructions mentioned above, there is a strategy to expand student demands and bring together other social sectors. A message dated October 11 proposed to concentrate part of the protests on the elimination of Parcoursup, the French system for access to higher education. It also suggested that the leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon

publicly support that demand.

Another communication would have recommended including in the claims the prosecution of police officers accused of using excessive force against adolescents. In addition, the messages proposed involving unions, especially the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), and members of the yellow vest movement. For the researchers, the purpose was to transform sectoral demands into a broader and confrontational mobilization

.

The alleged operation would also have had a digital dimension. InformNapalm mentions networks of fake pages, automated accounts and disinformation campaigns such as Portal Kombat, Doppelgänger and Overload, used to disseminate misleading content and

discredit French institutions.

Concern about Russian interference also appears in an internal evaluation of the European Union released by Reuters on November 9. According to that document, a network linked to Moscow took advantage of the riots to spread false videos and radicalized sectors of the

extreme left.

The mobilizations, which began with educational and economic demands, led to episodes of violence during October. According to French sources, the riots of October 17 and 24 left around 3,400 people arrested

in total.

The case brings back to the center of the discussion the Kremlin's influence operations in Europe and its alleged strategy of exploiting internal conflicts to deepen polarization and weaken trust in democratic institutions.