Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens (Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs): “Diplomacy is also played out in digital spaces”

The Quai d’Orsay launched French Response last year, an account on X which responds with humor to false information. Where does this initiative come from?

The mission of the DCP (communications and press department) is to make France’s foreign policy heard. With the evolution of the global information field, this mission has changed profoundly. Social networks accelerate the circulation of information manipulation, misleading narratives and falsified content. Some campaigns explicitly seek to weaken French diplomatic positions or to distort our positions.

In this context, Minister Jean-Noël Barrot asked us to transform our communication. It has indeed become necessary to have tools capable of quickly intervening in the conversations where these stories circulate. French Response meets this objective: to provide facts, establish chronologies, correct manipulations and show that French diplomacy no longer leaves the information field without a response.

The humorous tone is not formal. Why this choice?

French Response represents a change in posture for French diplomacy in the war of narratives that we are experiencing. This is not an abandonment of diplomatic codes, it is an adaptation to the codes of platforms, where humor is not the only weapon. Irony sometimes allows us to create distance from content that is deliberately outrageous or provocative. The objective is not to “create a buzz” but to show that certain manipulations are identified and publicly contested.

How many people work on French Response?

We do not communicate on this point. But we work with constant resources.

What initial assessment can you draw from this?

In a few months, we reached the threshold of 200,000 subscribers. After X, we open French Response on TikTok. French Response found a significant audience, the large majority located outside France, which is the objective. This shows that informational issues are now fully integrated into international relations. Diplomacy no longer only takes place in negotiation rooms, but also in digital spaces.

What about the battle of stories?

The entry of the Quai d’Orsay into the battle of stories is the last part of our transformation, on which we are emphasizing in 2026. If we do not commit to defending the values ​​of democracy, respect for international law, and science, we are leaving the field to our adversaries to shape opinions and perceptions.

In today’s informational war, our adversaries are imposing their narratives against us. If the role of the State is central, the scale of the battle requires the involvement of the whole of society. To this end, we have launched a call for volunteers to join the digital contingent of the diplomatic reserve, based on the model of the military reserve. These are compatriots who are ready to support us to co-construct these stories and multiply their impact. On May 7, the ministry organized an event at Gaété Lyrique, “Acting in the battle of stories,” with “speed dating” to select candidates for the digital reserve. In a constrained budgetary context, this is an important and useful innovation.