PARIS: France has ‘detected a Russia-linked disinformation effort’ alleging President Emmanuel Macron’s involvement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a government official said on Friday.

France’s Viginum agency, which counters foreign disinformation campaigns, said it had detected an operation involving a fabricated video report accusing President Emmanuel Macron of being involved in the Epstein affair, the source said.

“The fake report was posted on a site fraudulently using the identity of a French media organisation, France-Soir,” said the source, adding that a project called Storm-1516 spreading fabricated content was behind the operation.

The report, allegedly by Le Parisien journalist Victor Cousin, claimed to reveal “documents” incriminating Macron.

The US Justice Department’s files about Epstein do not contain the alleged documents.

Writing for Le Parisien, Cousin, 26, said he went to a police station to file a complaint.

“I had to explain how pro-Russian individuals had stolen my identity to attack the French president,” he wrote.

“The police officer in front of me stared at me with wide eyes, unable to comprehend what I was saying.”

‘Brand theft’

On Wednesday, France-Soir sought to distance itself from the fabricated report.

“Warning: brand and content theft,” it said. “The website http://france-soir.net has no connection with France-Soir.” According to the government source, the site was linked “with a high degree of confidence to the CopyCop information operation.”

CopyCop is linked to John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive living in Russia. The latter “maintains part of the digital infrastructure of the Storm-1516 information operation”, the source added.

On X, the first account to share the fake video report was “@LoetitiaH, a frequent relay for Storm-1516 information operations”, the source added.

The video content was then “picked up and amplified by numerous other accounts monitored by Viginum”, said the source.

The source said that “this operation is very similar” to other Storm-1516 campaigns targeting political figures.

The posts targeting Macron began appearing online on Wednesday, shared simultaneously by several social media accounts identified as regular sources of pro-Russian disinformation. The accounts have a following of several thousand internet users.

The posts cite an alleged email exchange between Epstein and the controversial French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was found dead in his cell in a Paris prison in 2022 after being charged with raping minors.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2026