France confirmed this Tuesday that Russian military intelligence (GRU) carried out at least 12 attacks in the past several years against Emmanuel Macron’s first presidential campaign in 2017 and other entities, including national media and a Paris Olympics-linked firm. According to the ministry, thousands of Macron campaign emails and other sensitive documents, including some allegedly false, were leaked online hours before the midnight deadline to end campaigning. “Thousands of documents were stolen and disseminated in the hope of manipulating voters, but the manoeuvre failed to have any real impact on the 2017 electoral process,” said a foreign ministry video, shared on X by Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. Attacks to create panic in France The ministry also attributed other cyberattacks to the GRU, including the 2015 hacking of local TV5Monde. It said Russian hackers, posing as Islamic State militants, targeted the broadcast media outlet “to manipulate public opinion” and create panic in the country. A branch of the GRU tasked with cyberattacks had targeted a dozen French entities since 2021, including defence, financial, and economic sectors, the foreign ministry added. Barrot said that the GRU “has been carrying out cyberattacks against France for several years using a method known as APT28.” Dozens of cyberattacks worlwide APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, is accused of dozens of cyberattacks worldwide, including against the 2016 US election to allegedly help Donald Trump win the White House by leaking his opponent Hillary Clinton’s emails. In a separate report, the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) also this Tuesday said the list of French organizations attacked by APT28 military hackers includes ministerial entities, local governments, and administrations, organisations in the French Defence Technological and Industrial Base, aerospace entities, research organizations, think-tanks, and entities in the economic and financial sector. “France condemns in the strongest terms the use by Russia’s military intelligence service of the APT28 attack group, at the origin of several cyberattacks on French interests,” the ministry said. The Guardian reported that in September 2024, several international intelligence services, including German authorities, warned of the risk of cyberattacks targeting NATO countries that Fancy Bear had carried out. Barrot said, “The GRU has targeted around ten French entities since 2021. In cyberspace, France observes, blocks, and combats its adversaries.”