@Languillem is hyperactive. In a scan conducted in the week of March 30 to April 5, it posted 3,808 tweets, at an average of 544 per day. Of those, 88 per cent were retweets; 16 per cent were retweets of @RTenfrancais and @Sputnik_fr. The account is anonymous, with a username, screen name and avatar image (a koala) which reveals nothing about the user, or users, behind the account.

@Languillem has all the appearance of a largely automated account set up to amplify others, including the Kremlin’s.

The same applies to @encore_fred. It mentioned @RTenfrancais 594 times in October-November, and 705 times in March. Its pattern of activity suggests automation: 2,746 tweets in the sample week, or 392 a day, and a retweet rate of 92 per cent.

Curiously, @encore_fred also amplifies Sputnik’s German service, @de_sputnik. In October-November, the account posted 389 retweets of @de_sputnik; in the sample week in March, it posted 92.

The @encore_fred account is therefore a multilingual amplifier of the Kremlin’s outlets.

These are not, however, the most active accounts in this study. That honor goes to @heelleclech, which was the twelfth most prolific amplifier of @RTenfrancais in March, mentioning it 243 times.

In the week from March 30 to April 5, @heelleclech posted 5,443 tweets, or an average of 777 a day. Almost 98 per cent of its tweets in that period were retweets.

@Heelleclech appears to be a bot, but RT and Sputnik are only a small part of its activity. During the sample week, it retweeted @rtenfrancais 56 times, and @sputnik_fr twice; it also retweeted Sputnik’s German service 22 times. By contrast, it posted 615 retweets hostile to Macron, and 495 retweets praising Le Pen. It also mentioned wrestling franchise WWE 339 times.

Therefore, @heelleclech is an amplifier for RT and Sputnik, but that is not its primary activity.

Much the same can be said of @maralpoutine, which the DFRLab identified as a probable bot in December. This account mentioned @RTenfrancais and @sputnik_fr 436 times in October-November, and 550 times in March; in the first week of April, it posted a total of 1,560 tweets, at an average rate of 222 a day.

However, of the 1,560 tweets posted in the sample week, only 100 mentioned the Kremlin accounts. By comparison, it made 340 posts hostile to Macron.

Conclusion

RT France and Sputnik France are fringe players in the French Twittersphere. Their followings are relatively small, and are at least partially driven by automated accounts.

Their most active following is in specific audience segments, especially pro-Russian accounts and those on the extreme political right. The latter is not a uniform constituency: it is divided between supporters of Le Pen and Asselineau, opponents of Macron and accounts which do not endorse any candidate, but espouse nationalist or isolationist views. Some of the accounts are hostile to one another’s preferred candidates.

What explains this following? The pro-Russian accounts’ attachment to RT and Sputnik is easily explained: both outlets regularly validate and amplify the Kremlin’s chosen narratives (indeed Sputnik’s task, according to the presidential decree which created its parent agency, is to “report on the state policy of the Russian Federation abroad”).

The attachment of far-right and nationalist groups is more interesting. As the DFRLab has already reported, Sputnik France has a shown significant bias towards Le Pen and against Macron. RT France’s stance is more nuanced, but it shares the Kremlin’s skepticism towards the EU and NATO. Both are also anti-establishment, and position themselves as an alternative to the “mainstream media,” a stance favored by political fringe groups.

RT and Sputnik France therefore seem to have won a dedicated following on Twitter from accounts which identify with a particular anti-EU and anti-NATO stance which can shade into nationalism and isolationism. Those users are not homogeneous, and oppose one another’s candidates, but they are largely united in their opposition to the political center.