Macron comes out swinging against French 'fake news,' blames Trump, Bannon

The headline on France 24, as translated, reads, "French political parties organize to counter French fake news." In reality, "party" would seem more accurate than "parties," since the truth squad in question has been organized by President Macron's La République en Marche (LREM). Five full-time employees and some "militant" volunteers will alert the media to anything that rubs the monitors the wrong way. French media being as skewed as American media, the reader who guesses that "ultraconservateurs et des nationalistes" are the ones to be monitored will be rewarded for his cynicism.

What even the cynic might not anticipate, however, is that the LREM and, by extension, the media blame President Donald Trump and his former adviser, Steve Bannon, for the alleged fake news epidemic. Reports France 24, "This distortion of facts seems to have been borrowed directly from Donald Trump. The American president regularly spouts untruths to defend his ideas." According to France 24, Bannon "has made Europe his new playing field." He is said to be working with populist parties across Europe and even dared to appear at a gathering of the Rassemblement National, the new name for the party headed by Marine Le Pen. The fact that for the last two years France 24, along with the rest of the world's progressive news organizations, pushed the most epic "contre-vérité" in recent journalism history has apparently not yet sobered up the French media. Image: Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons.