Facebook closes fake accounts linked to French military and Russia
Tags: Newsletter, France, Newspapers, News, News Articles

Facebook said Tuesday that it had removed two networks based in Russia and one linked to the French military, accusing them of carrying out interference campaigns in Africa.

Two networks running multiple Facebook accounts were assigned to people associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency, and the third had “links to individuals associated with French military,” the social media platform said.

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All three were removed from the site for breaking its policy against foreign or government interference, Facebook said, adding that the networks targeted countries mainly in north Africa and some in the Middle East.

The French military made no immediate comment on the allegations.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, and David Agranovich, head of global threat disruption, said in a blog that the campaigns dueled with each other online.

“This was the first time our team found two campaigns — from France and Russia — actively engage with one another, including by befriending, commenting and criticising the opposing side for being fake,” they said.

The networks “used fake accounts as a central part of their operations to mislead people about who they are and what they are doing, and that was the basis for our action,” Facebook said.

The French network targeted the Central African Republic and Mali, and, to a lesser extent, Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Chad.

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It involved 84 Facebook accounts, 6 pages, 9 groups and 14 Instagram accounts that violated policy against “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

Some of the posts, in French and Arabic, were about France’s policies in Francophone Africa, claims of Russian interference in CAR elections, supportive comments about the French military and criticism of Russia.

French schoolchildren will be allowed to skip classes and stay at home on Thursday and Friday if their families wish to self-isolate ahead of Christmas, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Tuesday.

The medical council advising the government on COVID-19 said on Monday that families who planned to host people vulnerable to the coronavirus, such as elderly relatives, should quarantine for a week beforehand if possible.

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Schools should not punish pupils who missed the last two days of the academic term, the council added.

Asked if he supported the recommendation, Castex told Europe 1 radio: “Of course.”

Governments across Europe are grappling with how to contain a powerful second wave of the virus just as families yearn to gather over the festive period.

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France is delaying the reopening of theatres, museums and cinemas and re-imposing a nightly curfew from Tuesday, while the Netherlands is going into a tough second lockdown and Germany is shutting down non-essential shops from Wednesday.

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said on Friday that 22 schools had so far been closed across France and in French territories due to cases of Covid-19, just days after some 12 million students returned to school on Tuesday.

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“In mainland France there are currently 12 schools closed out of a total of more than 60,000, which is a small figure. In addition, 10 schools in La Réunion (a French department in the Indian Ocean) were closed, which makes the total 22,” Blanquer told Europe 1 radio.

Up to 130 classes have also been halted and the minister said the authorities were investigating around 250 incidents related to Covid-19 in schools each day.

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These incidents are mainly linked to “factors outside school, concerning people who could have been contaminated” over the summer, he said.

If a school reports more than three coronavirus cases the school is temporarily shut, Blanquer said.

But he said the first week of classes had gone “relatively well”, adding that “despite the fears everyone went back and that makes me very happy”.

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As more than 12 million pupils returned to school in France on Tuesday, some parents and teachers’ unions voiced concerns over plans for reopening classrooms as the spread of the virus picks up pace.

The health ministry said on Thursday it had registered more than 7,000 new coronavirus infections over 24 hours for the second time in two days, just shy of a 7,578 record set on March 31.

Hospitalisations for the virus are also on the rise in France.

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French preschools, primary schools and middle schools will reopen next Monday with “mandatory presence” for all of the country’s pupils, President Emmanuel Macron announced in a shock move on Sunday, meaning the nation’s teachers have just one week to prepare their back-to-school programmes.

In a televised address to the nation on Sunday evening, Macron announced that this year’s summer school holidays will be postponed until July 4 and that the country’s children will be expected to return to their nurseries, primary schools and middle schools for two weeks already on June 22. Presence would be “mandatory”, he said.

“Two weeks count, two weeks are not nothing, whether it’s out of an educational aspect or a psychological aspect,” Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said following Macron’s address. “School should never be considered as a day-care centre of sorts.”

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The news sent shock waves through the teaching community, whose members now have only one week to prepare curriculums and organise their classroom groups. Since May 11, when France entered the first phase of its eased lockdown measures, French schoolchildren have been able to return to school on a voluntary basis. According to the government, only 1.8 million of the country’s 6.7 million pre- and primary schoolers have since gone back to class, and just 600,000 of the country’s 3.3 million middle schoolers.

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“There are a lot of questions that still remain unanswered: Do we keep with the previous health guidelines or not, do people who are at risk have to come back or not? Once again, the abrupt nature of announcements [like this] hardly allow for our teaching teams to prepare for the resumption of classes in the best conditions,” the Sud-Education teachers’ union said in a statement.

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The teacher advocacy group Des Stylos Rouges (The Red Pens), also reacted about the lack of details on how teachers were expected to handle the imminent resumption of classes. “Everyone back to school on June 22! For 10 days of classes? What about the health guidlines? And people who are at risk? We have no information. Not a word about #Profbashing (teacher bashing) or #MerciLesProfs (thank you teachers),” it said on Twitter.

Although the Snes-FSU teachers’ union struck a lighter tone, saying it welcomed the resumption of classes in order to bring potential dropouts back on track, it said that it would be challenging for the country’s teachers and schools to fully organise in just one week.

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“It’s good news, because we couldn’t understand how school had become optional for some,” its national secretary and spokeswoman Frédérique Rolet told radio station Franceinfo. “We have to … catch the dropouts,” she said. “These few days might allow for some teachers to establish what students have, or haven’t done, [in terms of schoolwork] during the lockdown.”

But, she added: “We have to reorganise. We had already drawn up new timetables, and student classroom groups. And so we have to work together and redo them,” she said. “There are a lot, a lot of questions.”

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Since May 11, French classrooms have been restricted to allow a maximum of 15 pupils at a time, but that is set to change as the government unveils the details of its new health guidelines for schools on Tuesday.

“The physical distancing will now be less restrictive,” Blanquer told national broadcaster Europe 1, saying that the required social distancing would be reduced from the previous four square metres to just one square meter, meaning that each classroom will now be able to take in more pupils.

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A government decree published on Monday said that: “In elementary schools and middle schools, the measure of at least one metre of social distancing will only be applied in classrooms and in enclosed spaces, between teachers and students, and between students.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday said he was accelerating plans to ease the country’s coronavirus lockdown to revive the euro zone’s second biggest economy more swiftly.

“The fight against the epidemic is not finished but I am happy about this first victory against the virus,” Macron said in an address to the nation.

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He said that all of mainland France, including Paris and its suburbs, would be classified as a “green zone” of a lower state of alert starting Monday, meaning that cafes and restaurants in the French capital can open in full and not just on terraces.

The announcement will be a relief for restaurants in Paris, after officials signalled last week that their reopening might not come before June 22.

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Only the overseas territories of Mayotte (in the Indian Ocean) and French Guiana (in South America) will remain at the “orange” alert level, with highs number of cases still posing a threat to strained hospital systems.

Macron also said that all French schools, except high schools, would fully reopen from June 22, a move that will allow more parents to return to work and give students at least a few days with their teachers before the summer break.

Family visits will also be allowed from Monday at nursing homes, which have been hit especially hard by the Covid-19 outbreak that has killed more than 29,000 people in France, though the number of new infections has slowed markedly in recent days.

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“As soon as tomorrow we will be able to turn the page on this first chapter across all our territory,” Macron said.

The president also confirmed that the second round of municipal elections originally set for March, when the government imposed the lockdown against the virus, would go ahead as planned on June 28.

But mass gatherings will remain “tightly controlled” for now, since “they are the main occasions for spreading the virus,” he said.

‘A new, stronger economic model’

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Macron promised that the cost of keeping companies afloat and people in jobs during the worst economic downturn since World War Two would not be passed to households through taxes.

Macron said the government had mobilised an “unprecedented” 500 billion euros ($563 billion) in financial aid and relief to prevent layoffs and support key sectors including aviation, automobiles, restaurants and tourism.

“With this epidemic, the global economy has come to a virtual standstill. Our first priority will be to rebuild an economy that is strong, ecological, sovereign and united,” he said.

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The government expects the economy to shrink by 11% in 2020.

The coronavirus emergency had exposed France’s, and more broadly Europe’s, heavy reliance on global supply chains, from the car industry to smart phones and pharmaceuticals, that were paralysed when the epidemic first broke out in China.

“The only answer is to build a new, stronger economic model, work and produce more, so as not to rely on others,” Macron said.

‘Uncompromising’ against racism, but statues to remain

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Macron also touched on the anti-racism protests that have spread to France in the wake of the death of African American George Floyd in the United States.

The global outpouring of anger has forced France to confront allegations from ethnic minorities and rights group of racism and brutality within France’s own law enforcement agencies.

Macron said skin colour too often reduced a person’s opportunities in France, promising to be“uncompromising” against all discrimination.

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However, he insisted that France will not take down statues of controversial, colonial-era figures as has happened in some other countries in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the United States and ensuing worldwide protests against racial injustice.

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“The Republic will not erase any trace or name from its history,” Macron said. “Rather, we must look together lucidly, at all of our history, all of our memories, our relationship with Africa in particular, to build a present and a possible future … and under no circumstances revisit or deny what we are.”

“The Russian imperialists are a gangrene on Mali!” read a sample post shared by Facebook.

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In disrupting the two Russian networks, the social network removed 274 Facebook accounts and 18 Instagram accounts, along with an array of groups and pages.

“We shared information about our findings with law enforcement and industry partners,” Gleicher and Agranovich said.

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“We are making progress rooting out this abuse, but as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing effort and we’re committed to continually improving to stay ahead.”

French lawmakers on Monday approved a new tax on digital giants such as Facebook and Apple that has angered the United States, with Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire boasting that France was proud to be in the vanguard of such a move.

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The United States has urged its NATO ally to drop the plan, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning last week that it would hurt both the American firms and the French citizens who use the platforms.

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The measure was approved by 55 votes against four in the National Assembly, with five abstentions. It will then be put to vote in the Senate, or upper house, before becoming law.

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The legislation, dubbed “Gafa” after Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, comes amid rising public outrage at the minimal tax paid by some of the world’s richest firms.

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“France is honoured to be leading on such subjects,” Le Maire told parliament before the vote, saying that the draft constituted a “step… towards a fairer and more efficient taxation for the 21st century.”

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Responding to the criticism from the United States, Le Maire said France was “determined” to press on with the legislation and would be “sovereign” on fiscal issues.

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He said it was “unacceptable” that digital giants could make considerable profits from user data so that the “profits are made in France but the taxes are imposed abroad”.

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Last month, France unveiled the draft legislation to set a three percent tax on digital advertising, the sale of personal data and other revenue for any technology company that earns more than 750 million euros ($840 million) worldwide each year.

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France is seeking to agree the legislation on a national level after a European Union-wide effort was scuttled by low-tax countries such as Ireland, which have wooed big technology firms.

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But Le Maire insisted that a “good solution in the long term will be a multilateral solution,” vowing not to let up in efforts for an agreement within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).