MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, head of the LR list for the European elections, announced to AFP on Monday the filing of a complaint after he was the subject of an attempted cyberattack by a group of hackers called APT31, which several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, consider linked to the Chinese government.
“As Chinese President Xi Jinping begins a state visit to Paris, we have the feeling that we have not taken the measure of what is happening today in terms of foreign interference,” declared Mr. Bellamy, by “asking Emmanuel Macron to put on the table the need for respect for Parliament” during his exchanges with his Chinese counterpart. Arriving in France on Sunday, Xi Jinping is coming to celebrate 60 years of Franco-Chinese diplomatic relations. In particular, he must participate in a ceremony Monday afternoon at the Invalides, in Paris, before an official dinner.
Other MPs targeted
According to the head of the LR list, who says he was informed by the American Department of Justice, his European Parliament email inbox would have been targeted. “We do not know whether the hacking attempt was completed,” continued the MEP, member of the interparliamentary alliance on China (IPAC), a body created in 2020 to act in a coordinated manner on various subjects relating to to China (Covid, repression of Uighurs, demonstrations in Hong Kong, etc.). Several French deputies and senators who are members of this same group, and also targeted by APT31 cyberattacks, have sounded the alarm in recent days about the “lightness” of the authorities’ response to this “act of war”.
Centrist senator Olivier Cadic and six other French parliamentarians claimed to have been the subject of toxic emails in January 2021. Most, like François-Xavier Bellamy, only discovered the existence of this attack at the end of March 2024, when the US Department of Justice issued an indictment charging seven Chinese people for a ” prolific global hacking operation. This would include, in particular, several hundred accounts linked to IPAC, attacked in January 2021.
Questioned at the end of last week by AFP, the prosecution refused to comment on this matter. “APT31’s operating mode is subject to particular monitoring”, “including judicial”, for her part assured Tuesday the government spokesperson, Prisca Thevenot, stressing that “the government does not exclude “publicly attribute these cyberattacks” in the future.