France’s presidential election is set for the spring of 2027, and it is already attracting instances of misinformation and alleged foreign interference that have since sparked criminal proceedings. Researchers from the bot-tracking network AntiBot4Navalny have detected a campaign linked to Matryoshka, a covert influence and disinformation operation aligned with Russia. At first, these posts focused on Gabriel Attal, the former prime minister of France who is running to succeed current president Emmanuel Macron. Attal filed a criminal complaint with French authorities “alleging foreign interference originating from Russian networks”, after fabricated videos impersonating French news outlets targeted him online. Fake videos…