The alert is being taken very seriously, nine months before the opening of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) in Paris. The French service responsible for combating foreign digital interference (Viginum) has uncovered a campaign, relayed largely from Azerbaijan, calling for a boycott of the games next summer. The operation, detected last July, aimed in particular to cast doubt on France’s abilities to organize the tests after the riots sparked by the death of young Nahel M. at the end of June, killed by a police officer’s shot at the aftermath of a chase in Nanterre.
“Investigations showed that at least one foreign actor close to Azerbaijan had acted, through the use of inauthentic processes, with the aim of damaging France’s reputation in its ability to host the 2024 JOPs”is written in a report from Viginum, an organization attached to the general secretariat of defense and national security, placed under the authority of the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne.
“Inauthentic Accounts” on X
According to this report consulted by The world, Monday November 13, “this coordinated maneuver is the result of two distinct operating modes”. The first, orchestrated on the X platform, “consists of the amplification of a call to boycott the Paris Olympics by inauthentic foreign accounts”, some of which have links with Azerbaijan, even if nothing proves to date, according to Viginum, that the regime at the head of this former Soviet state is at the origin of the campaign. The investigations carried out, however, made it possible to identify “a first-time broadcaster X account, whose declared identity corresponds to that of a member of the New Azerbaijan Party”a certain Muxtar Nagiyev, local manager of the training of President Ilham Aliev.
During a very short period of time, from July 26 to 27, more than 1,600 posts accompanied by similar visuals and hashtags were published on“inauthentic”often presenting common characteristics: “Forty of them were created during the month of July 2023 and have since published only content calling for a boycott of the Olympic Games”, explains Viginum. One of these accounts also posted a “hostile video” to the holding of the Paris Olympics viewed several million times on X. The document lasting thirty-nine seconds “established a parallel between scenes of riots and sporting competitions”according to Viginum.
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