On X, the @FrenchResponse account, officially linked to the French ministry of foreign affairs, is supposed to represent France’s interests and defend the country’s image internationally on social media. But its ideologically aggressive stances have caught the attention of internet users, who have exposed its suspicious links with Qatar. The ministry defends itself and accuses the ‘far right’ of ‘racism.’
The influencer Pierre Sautarel, owner of the @FrDesouche account, at the heart of the French online disinformation-revealing enterprise, has on several occasions highlighted the excesses of the account’s administrator, such as when they mocked Tommy Robinson’s visit to Paris, during which Robinson lamented the area around Gare du Nord—notoriously a cesspool of filth and crime.
Annoyed by the recurring pro-immigration tweets on this quasi-official account, the influencer looked into the profile of the person running it. His revelations are worth their weight in gold.
The person in question is a certain Marie-Doha Besancenot, with a rather unusual first name. Having worked at NATO, she is the daughter of Bertrand Besancenot, former French ambassador to Qatar and a central figure in Franco-Qatari relations. She was born in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and her first name is a tribute to this emirate, explains Sautarel. The Besancenot family has close ties with the ruling Al-Thani family of Qatar. Within the family circle, there are also connections to Jacques Chirac’s former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, another figure known for his close ties to Qatar and the Al-Thani family.
Qatar is not a neutral player. The emirate maintains open relations with Daesh, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban. Immediately upon retirement, Marie-Doha’s father was approached to become an adviser to Qatar Charity, an organisation that funds numerous mosques and Islamist associations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in France and across Europe. And to this young person, the foreign minister chose to entrust France’s informal counter-offensive on social media.
Following Sautarel’s revelations, foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot railed against “the far-right pack” accused of spewing “hate speech” in the name of “degenerate conspiracy theories.”
Faced with attacks from on high, Sautarel defends himself. This is not a fixation on a first name with exotic-sounding accents but something far more serious: “We are denouncing a risk of interference based on public information, which is only prohibited in dictatorships.”
Rassemblement National MEP Pierre-Romain Thionnet pinpoints exactly what is problematic about the @FrenchResponse account.
While acknowledging at first glance a certain usefulness in the initial project—filling the gap in France’s diplomatic presence in the battle of online ‘narratives’—he questions the political line it champions: “It presents what weakens us (migration policy, identity crisis) as a strength” without considering that these are objective problems to be addressed. He sums it up: “From French Response, we sometimes quickly move on to Defence of the French Government.”
Thionnet points out that whilst it is commendable to seek to free oneself from the influence of external powers, whatever they may be, the best way to achieve this is to prioritise the fundamentals that underpin the country’s sovereignty: “border protection, a shift in migration policy, the restoration of order on the streets and the affirmation of identity.”
