Illustration © Peshkova, 123rf, as published in: https://operationnels.com/2024/02/08/lia-comme-outil-de-lutte-anti-desinformation/
The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE for “ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères”) has just published a report entitled “The MEAE and the Manipulation of Information: Protect, Alert, Respond”, calling for a stronger inter-allied diplomatic approach.
After highlighting its main points, this article reviews the main countermeasures progressively put in place at the level of the European Union over the past decade, beginning with the 2015 launch of the “East StratCom” Task Force within the European External Action Service (1).
The Need to “Rearm Minds”
Faced with the “information chaos exploited by our competitors,” France—particularly targeted by Russia and ranking third worldwide in terms of diplomatic networks—seeks to mobilize itself “on a daily basis in favor of a multilateral order serving the sovereignty of States, respect for international law, the right of peoples to self-determination, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts” (2).
Like its European partners, France faces a dual challenge: dependence on non-European digital platforms, and the need to effectively coordinate public action, diplomacy, and civic engagement.
In response, the MEAE advocates a comprehensive and integrated approach. Diplomatically, the fight against disinformation must be carried into multilateral arenas—UN, EU, G7—in order to defend a free but protected information space.
Cooperation with European and transatlantic partners is essential, whether through sharing databases, detection tools, or lessons learned. The document also highlights the need to fully involve civil society and the private sector: raising citizen awareness, working with the media, and encouraging digital platforms to take greater responsibility. Finally, technological innovation remains at the heart of the response: monitoring the use of artificial intelligence, developing automated detection capacities, and strengthening responsiveness in the event of an information crisis.
This action echoes initiatives undertaken within the European Union over the past decade.
The European Union and Disinformation: Consolidating The Regulatory Framework
The European Union has indeed developed a multifaceted approach to combating disinformation, combining regulatory frameworks, research observatories, awareness strategies, and coercive measures.
The communication axis of the EU strategy is embodied by the East StratCom Task Force, created ten years ago within the European External Action Service. Initially focused on pro-Kremlin disinformation campaigns in Eastern Europe’s neighboring countries, this body has expanded its scope. It manages the EUvsDisinfo database and conducts multilingual awareness campaigns (3).
The European Democracy Action Plan complements this approach by emphasizing platform accountability and transparency, while promoting critical thinking and media literacy training (4).
As early as 2018, the EU laid the foundations of its strategy with the adoption of an Action Plan against Disinformation, aimed at strengthening cooperation among Member States, digital platforms, and media. This initiative was accompanied by the Code of Practice on Disinformation, initially established in 2018 and reinforced in 2022. The code sets out voluntary commitments for digital platforms, including transparency in political advertising, limiting the monetization of false content, supporting fact-checkers, and tackling manipulative behavior (5).
The regulatory architecture has simultaneously been considerably strengthened with the entry into force of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in 2022.
This legislation imposes strict transparency, moderation, and risk assessment obligations on platforms—particularly very large ones—together with remediation requirements (6).
The European approach also relies on a research and fact-checking network, with the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) forming the central pillar of this strategy.
Bringing together fact-checking organizations, academic research institutes, and media literacy actors, EDMO seeks to provide expertise, training, and civic engagement (7).
Research initiatives include projects such as Pheme (FP7), which aimed to develop real-time detection tools to assess the accuracy of information shared on social media (8).
A significant recent step forward was the integration of the Code of Practice on Disinformation into the DSA framework, which became effective on July 1st. This transformed the platforms’ voluntary commitments into auditable references (9).
The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) also entered into force in August. It seeks to strengthen the freedom, independence, and pluralism of European media, notably through the action of a Media Board inaugurated earlier this year (10).
By explicitly addressing the issue of foreign information interference, EU regulation on disinformation is now undergoing a decisive shift, marked by the consolidation of the legal framework via the DSA, the strengthening of safeguards for the media through the EMFA, and broader institutional and societal cooperation. These developments reflect the intention to move from voluntary approaches to binding mechanisms, placing the fight against disinformation at the heart of the Union’s and Member States’ priorities—as illustrated by the French Foreign Ministry’s report mentioned in the first part of this article.
However, the effectiveness of this system remains dependent on several factors: the acceptance and implementation of new obligations by platforms, the ability of Member States to mobilize consistent resources, and the capacity to respond swiftly to accelerating manipulation dynamics—particularly those involving artificial intelligence.
Finally—and above all—maintaining a balance between the need for regulation and the preservation of freedom of expression in the face of risks of politicization remains a major challenge, upon which the democratic legitimacy of the entire process depends.
By Murielle Delaporte
Notes & References
(1) https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/questions-and-answers-about-east-stratcom-task-force_en
(2) Le ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères face aux manipulations de l’information : protéger, alerter, riposter, MEAE, Paris, september2025.
(3) https://euvsdisinfo.eu/fr/
(4) https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/protecting-democracy_en#what-is-the-european-democracy-action-plan
(5) https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/online-disinformation ; https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/protecting-democracy/strengthened-eu-code-practice-disinformation
(6) https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act_en
(7) https://edmo.eu/
(8) https://www.pheme.eu/
(9) https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/fr/library/code-conduct-disinformation
(10) https://media-board.europa.eu/news-0/new-era-media-regulation-europe-european-media-freedom-acts-main-obligations-become-applicable-2025-08-08 ; https://media-board.europa.eu/news-0/inaugural-plenary-media-board-marks-turning-point-eu-media-regulation-2025-02-21_en