Already ubiquitous on social media since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine three years ago, disinformation targeting Kyiv and its European allies continues to spread. The latest example: a doctored video showing Emmanuel Macron inviting African citizens to "settle in France," with the promise of free housing, easier visas, and a monthly allowance of €1,800. In reality, the sequence hijacks an earlier speech by the French president—a characteristic of manipulation campaigns like Storm-1516, a vast pro-Russian influence operation disseminating false information on a massive scale.

Since August 21, 2025, a video in English (1, 2) and French (1,2,3) has been circulating on X and YouTube. It is presented as a supposed campaign of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

"France, a country of opportunity and welcome, opens its borders to citizens of Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, and Benin, on behalf of French President Emmanuel Macron and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. As part of our commitment to cultural enrichment and international cooperation, we invite citizens of the aforementioned countries to come and settle in our country ," declares a voiceover.

Images scroll by, alternating between views of Paris and scenes filmed in Africa. The video then promises a "program" including a simplified visa process, free accommodation, food and transportation costs covered, and a monthly allowance of €1,800. The sequence concludes with the appearance of Emmanuel Macron, seemingly declaring: "Come and settle in France. France is waiting for you."

The video quickly went viral, propelled by local African media outlets and numerous accounts known to AFP Factuel for spreading pro-Russian false information. "Macron rolls out the red carpet for migrants," writes Camille Moscow, for example, an X-rated account displaying a Russian flag and regularly posting pro-Kremlin messages, particularly on the war in Ukraine.

But our analysis shows that the video was generated by artificial intelligence and is part of a new pro-Russian disinformation campaign.

A galaxy of dubious accounts

Such a national visa and allowance program should, if it actually existed, be formalized by a decree, a circular, a call for applications or, at the very least, by a dedicated page on an institutional website detailing the criteria and procedures with the relevant ministries or embassies. However, no trace of it appears in the official publications consulted.

Neither the website of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE), nor that of the Elysée Palace - which regularly publish press releases and announcements - mention such a system.

Another suspicious clue: the X account "France Pour Tous", likely the source of the fake news, was created recently, in May 2025. It pretends to be an institutional account linked to the government but uses visuals and slogans unrelated to institutional uses.

The profile picture and banner are available on Getty Images (archived link here). These elements correspond to methods already documented in pro-Russian campaigns, which rely on crude imitations of legitimate websites or accounts. AFP has notably devoted several articles to this issue here, here, and here.

A reverse image search found the sequence on the "France Pour Tous" YouTube channel, launched in March 2024. It has only a handful of subscribers and hosts only one video: the fake viral campaign (video archived here).

The video features an "Emmanuel Macron with you" logo, which is actually from the 2022 presidential campaign and freely available on Wikipedia, making it easy to fraudulently reuse (link archived here).

The comments below the video are also revealing: several recently created accounts, displaying biographies in Turkish, publish stereotypical messages such as "I've already started gathering the documents, it's really easy and quick," or "Welcome and solidarity are universal values that bring us together."

By observing these X accounts, we notice that they systematically react to the same publications:

Furthermore, while they praised the initiative a few days earlier in a post by @France_tous, they then became particularly virulent towards Emmanuel Macron and his migration policy in other publications (1,2,3):

An AI-generated video

Technical analysis of the video footage reveals several inconsistencies: the voice attributed to Emmanuel Macron has a noticeable accent, and his lip movements do not match the broadcast speech. An audio analysis of the voiceover using the deepfake detector Hiya.com – featured on the verification tool InVID-WeVerify – reveals that it was “most likely generated by AI”:

Still using the same tool, the original video was found: it is an extract from 2022 where the president, then campaigning, announced that gender equality would remain "the great cause of the 2022-2027 five-year term" (link archived here).

As for the illustrative images, they come from royalty-free image banks such as GettyImage and Elements.Envato:

QZZ

This type of content exhibits all the characteristics of the Storm-1516 campaigns described by Viginum, the French agency for combating information manipulation. They aim to sow confusion in Europe and Africa, fuel anti-French narratives, and exacerbate political tensions, particularly around the migration issue (archived link here).

"Storm 1516"

The Gnida Project, a research group specializing in detecting Russian disinformation campaigns, confirms that it has also identified this hoax as part of Operation Storm-1516, which creates and disseminates false information on a large scale (archived links here and here).

"This is consistent with their modus operandi, and the campaign content was disseminated through the influencer network associated with Storm-1516, which we are actively monitoring," Alex Liberty (pseudonym), a member of the group, told AFP on August 22, recalling that France and Macron are "long-term targets for Storm-1516's campaigns."

"The main objective" of the campaign that interests us here is "to fuel the anti-immigration discourse," he believes, pointing out that "a similar campaign by Storm-1516 targeted Germany in December 2024." Disinformation surrounding immigration in France is indeed a preferred vector for trying to influence opinion, particularly as elections approach.

According to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, Operation Storm-1516 has been active "since at least August 2023" and "could, due to its scale, have had an impact on the European public debate, or even influence several electoral elections", the objective being to "call into question the integrity of a vote, denigrate or support a candidate based on Russian interests".

Storm-1516's unique feature is its use of artificial intelligence to portray individuals with their faces uncovered. Pro-Russian campaigns called Doppelgänger, Matryoshka, and CopyCop are among the most high-profile examples: their authors made extensive use of inauthentic profiles, bots, to publish AI-generated content, notably aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine.

Another characteristic: the initial distribution of "Storm-1516" campaigns is often carried out by "disposable" accounts, that is, anonymous and created specifically for the occasion, notes the Viginum report. It can also come from third-party accounts, probably for a fee (archived link here).

The content is then "laundered" when it is republished on third-party news sites, mainly foreign ones, which are considered credible by the target audiences. The messages are then amplified with the aim of "reaching the target audiences and provoking the unconscious or opportunistic replication of the narratives by other actors and organizations."