At midnight last Friday, the one-week express election campaign for the second round of parliamentary elections ended, leaving behind a wide range of experiences with tensions, violence and insecurity. Bitterly also for the almost 200 candidates in France who withdrew to create a “barrier to the Far Right”. Bitterness for their voters, who no longer know what to vote for.

The intensity of the violence was experienced by those who went out at dusk to put up posters. Among the victims was government representative Prisca Teveno. Two members of her staff ended up in hospital.

The disinformation in this pre-election period was also massive, with foreign interference, with the creation of fake websites, such as the supposed websites of Macron’s staff and mainly with false promises, such as for example 100 euros for anyone who would vote for his party. But the use of artificial intelligence to create shocking images of uncontrolled immigration was also a new element.

Putin, anti-Semites, Nazi nostalgics

A study by the CNRS Research Center (National Center for Scientific Research) has published data on the alarming re-infiltration of pro-Russian networks, as has happened before. Millions of internet and social media posts were studied for the report.

According to the author of the report, David Savalarias, the main conclusion is that Moscow is the “source of efforts to destabilize the elections”. He also speaks of a “convergence of interests between the Putin regime and the French extreme right”. It is a “low noise strategy” to destabilize French society, he underlines.

And in all of this we also have Jordan Bardela’s “unsullied sheep”, the candidates with racist, anti-Semitic, conspiratorial statements that freeze the blood of the democrats. Bardella clearly rejected them, describing them as “unsullied sheep” (brebis galeuses). In the memories of many, however, it is difficult to erase the words or even the now famous image of the blonde candidate of Kalvantos with the Nazi quotient.