The digital space abolishes borders. Hostile actors and states have understood this well and are making it a new space for conflict.
These deliberate strategies have direct consequences in the physical field: attacks against French agents following online campaigns after the assassination of Samuel Paty in 2020; or even the ransacking of a French cultural center in Burkina Faso in 2021 after a rumor circulating on social networks.
On national territory, our competitors advance in disguise and seek to invest our electoral cycles, our national dramas, our histories and our memories. Internationally, they carry out large-scale information campaigns which combine manipulation of information and exploitation of the truth.
This undermining work endangers our diplomatic influence, our agents and our fellow citizens. These aggressive strategies seek to dilute our messages, restrict our actions, and weaken our reputation. In a sentence, these operations seek to make us appear for what we are not.
Faced with these exploitations, the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs is acting in the information field to protect our nationals, explain our foreign policy, promote the integrity of information and defend our democratic principles.
Consult Jean Noël Barrot’s speech at La Gaieté Lyrique (Thursday May 7, 2026)
Program for May 7, 2026
8h30 – 9h00 : reception – café – Modern & historic fireplaces 2nd
9h15 : opening session by Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs – Large room 2nd
Interventions d’experts :
– Paul Charon : French researcher, director of “Influence and Intelligence” at IRSEM, specialist in information strategies. He recently published “Chinese influence operations” (2024) and “The worlds of intelligence” (2024).
– Arnaud Miranda : doctor in political theory associated with Cevipof (Sciences Po) and postdoctoral researcher attached to the Tech-ILL program (Inalco). A specialist in the history of contemporary political ideas, his current research focuses on the digital and transnational circulation of reactionary ideas. He has just published a work called “Les Lumières sombres” (Gallimard, 2026).
– Elena Volochine : senior reporter, videographer and independent director, specialist in Russia and the Ukrainian war. Correspondent in Moscow for ten years, from 2012 to 2022 for French and French-speaking media. Since her return to France, she has hosted the weekly magazine Vu de Russia, on France 24 and continues her reports, focused on propaganda, stories and memorial conflicts. In 2025, she received the Albert Londres Prize for her book Propaganda, Vladimir Putin’s weapon of war (ed. Otherwise).
10h15 – 12h15 : free participation in various unique and interactive workshops led by the Ministry and numerous partners:
РAtelier r̩cit : respond to the hostile narratives of our adversaries by offering your counter-narratives, with Arnaud Mirandaspecialist in the MAGA sphere, and Maxime AudinetRussia specialist РAuditorium -1;
– Response workshop : defend the voice of France in the information sphere by creating your own French Response positions – Auditorium -1;
– Fight against disinformation: treat the problem at the root, by Grégoire Darcy, information warfare specialist – Â – Workshop 1;Â
– OSINT & EMI : Investigation / Traffic class in the Amazon with CLEMI, Center for Media and Information Education – Workshop 1;
– Cycle LMI 1Â : out put and Retex with the Cyber Campus – Large room 2nd;
– How can innovation preserve the integrity of information? with CFI, a French media development agency – Foyer historique;
– Cognitive Wargame with Gamepartners.fr: Defense Innovation Agency – Modern Home;
– Raise awareness about the fight against information manipulationwith VIGINUM, Vigilance and protection service against foreign digital interference – Modern fireplace;
– Enregistrements PODCAST :Â The underside of the fake news and Propagation. – Studio PODCAST 1st.
12h30 : cl̫ture РLarge room 2nd
