Hostile Influence Operations Ahead of the 2022 French Elections

Cyber and Informational Threats Ahead of the 2022 French Elections

On 31 March 2022, the Alliance of Democracies Foundation and the Paris Peace Forum co-hosted – with the support of Microsoft’s Democracy Forward Initiative – a private expert roundtable to exchange on hostile influence operations ahead of the 2022 French presidential and legislative elections. The discussions focused on identifying the main trends and challenges regarding foreign hostile interferences in the French electoral process in 2022, both in terms of cybersecurity and informational threats. This analysis was conducted in light of recent and past democratic elections, as well as lessons learned from those elections on how best to protect them.

This policy brief summarizes the key findings and analysis shared during this expert roundtable, which was held under the Chatham House Rule. All quotes, data and examples are from participants’ contributions during the meeting.