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French authorities on Tuesday accused a high-profile hacking group in Russia of orchestrating cyberattacks on President Emmanuel Macron's 2017 election campaign.
This is the first time that France has publicly accused Moscow of being behind the affair known as the "Macron leaks," which resulted in the disclosure of thousands of documents belonging to the then-candidate's campaign team.
A statement from the French Foreign Ministry said that Russia's intelligence service, the GRU, has been carrying out attacks for several years against French interests.
The unit accused of carrying out the attacks was the notorious APT28, also known as Fancy Bear. The group was previously sanctioned by the EU for hacking the German Bundestag in 2015.
He has also been linked to the hacking of the US Democratic National Committee in 2016 and email accounts belonging to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party in 2022 and 2023.
The French ministry said the hacker group has been used “to target or compromise a dozen French entities” since 2021, and is also being used to put pressure on Ukrainian infrastructure.
The French cybersecurity agency said in a document that French ministerial agencies were targeted, as well as various private sector actors, including the finance and aerospace sectors.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot posted a message on X saying that France "observes, blocks and fights its adversaries," along with a video about the "silent war" waged by Russia against France.
It is rare for the French government to name the perpetrators of cyberattacks on its territory.
However, in recent weeks, Macron has stepped up rhetoric against Russian President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to increase pressure on ceasefire talks between the US and Russia.
Last week, Macron called on Putin to “stop lying” about his desire to peacefully end the war in Ukraine. Earlier, the French president also warned US President Donald Trump that Putin was playing games at the end of an international summit in Paris.
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