Here is another revelation that comes as no surprise if we have kept in mind that what we know for sure about CCP influence operations is probably the tip of the iceberg. Following up on work by an American cybersecurity firm, the French government has confirmed the existence of “a network of propaganda sites linked to Beijing” (Le Monde, June 10, 2026).
An investigation by the French government agency Viginum has established that they were directly connected to CGTN, China’s state-run television channel….
Nicknamed “Fawn Mianju” by French authorities, the operation was first exposed in the summer of 2025 by the American cybersecurity company Graphika. At that time, Graphika identified 11 websites and 16 English-language social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads and X, all uncritically relaying CGTN articles and specifically targeting young people. Other sites shared this content in French (“Actu Méridien”), Spanish (“Amigo News”) and Vietnamese.
Mainly published between March 2015 and February 2026, the fake articles posted on “Actu Méridien” promoted Chinese aerospace and artificial intelligence, China as the leader of the “Global South,” and environmental initiatives, as well as the supposed benefits for France in aligning with Chinese interests. Another article, published in several languages, criticized a France 2 television report on the treatment of Uyghurs in China.
The evidence that all this goes back to the Chinese Communist Party is more than circumstantial. Among other clues: “the administrator of ‘Actu Méridien’ and the other sites inadvertently left a trace of his login ID, making it possible to identify him. He was a computer scientist working as a ‘senior project manager’ at CGTN Digital, the online branch of China’s state broadcaster.”
Also, it always took less than an hour for a reworded version of an article published on CGTN to appear on Actu Méridien or one of its counterpart sites.
By the way, none of these phony sites have been purveying “fake” articles. The professed identities of the publishers may be fake. But the articles the sites have been slinging consist of nothing else but real, genuine, authentic, 24-karat CCP propaganda.
