French lawmakers call for stronger countermeasures against Russian hybrid threats

This was stated in comments to Guildhall by representatives of the French Senate and National Assembly, Ukrinform reports.

National Assembly member Jean-Charles Larsonneur, who is part of the Defense Committee, says Russia is exploiting energy crisis in France to conduct hybrid operations, including to undermine support for Ukraine. He called for joint action to counter such threats.

“When it comes to hybrid threats, we need to have a global response. First of all, France must secure our own energy system and come to the higher possible level of consensus on this issue with French public, and we are already doing this (...). Russians are using this energy crisis for conducting their hybrid operations. Because one part of the hybrid war is to weak your economy, to make your population or the society tired because of to the current situation. And the first thing we must avoid is fatigue in France from the war in Ukraine (...). Now we have a very strong support for Ukraine in France, but I want to avoid at all costs changing of this support because of the inflation after the winter (…). That is the first aspect for countering Russian hybrid attacks – to keep robust public support for helping Ukraine,” said MP.

He emphasized the need to eliminate vulnerabilities to Russian cyber attacks and protect their own critical infrastructure. In particular, hospitals, nuclear power plants, etc.

“I’ve mentioned our priorities - public opinion and its preservation in support of Ukraine despite inflation and the protection of critical infrastructure. But than, there is a whole range of actions to undermine our alliances, our will to support Ukraine and fight together in a long run. For this, many channels and tools are used - think tanks, NGO’s, conferences at universities, of course, social networks and other tools. All this is used here in France, different actions and different actors as well. For example, politicians, contrary to what happened in the past, there are not so many politicians who openly support Russia now. For instance, National Front, partly funded by Russia and Russian oligarchs, at least publicly changed its speech, but don’t be mistaken – if they get power, there will be problems, they will come out in support of Russia, not Ukraine,” the legislator said.

 “We have former officials who have been sort of recruited by Russians. Now these people are representatives and members of the think tanks, called to exert influence in the interests of Russia. They shift responsibility to both sides, allegedly balancing things. We are already fighting this and must continue to fight it. Everyone is needed to fight - the government and politicians like me, think tanks and public organizations, journalists and such interviews, we must all oppose, all means of media warfare, we must fight together. After all, all these people have been working for Russia for decades they have been financed by people very close to Putin,” added Larsonneur.

Senator Francois Bonneau, member of the Defense Committee, said: “We have people who are channels for Russian influence, who are against support for Ukraine, and we must fight against it. I think we need to step up our countering to Russian hybrid threats. Just last week, a huge French military enterprise was under a cyberattack. This shows that Russians are trying to weaken our economy, to undermine France's ability to act. The war is not only on the front line, Russians are using all possible means to wage a hybrid war”