The French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has filed a counterfeiting complaint in court against a series of fake covers that it says are pro-Russian propaganda.
Charlie Hebdo's editorial team has identified about 15 fake front pages of the newspaper published over two years that they say "aim to make people believe that we are in favour of the policies of Putin," they said in a statement on Monday, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The editors filed a complaint with a Paris court with the aim of "at least identifying the authors and possibly the instigators of this propaganda", lawyer Richard Malka told the AFP news agency.
Images of covers using Charlie Hebdo’s recognisable style, with cartoons mocking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or the Ukrainian army along with signatures of the newspaper’s cartoonists have been making the rounds on Telegram, X and other social media.
Other fake covers make fun of Britain's migration policy or push false conspiracy theories about the gender of France's First Lady Brigitte Macron.
The complaint says the covers are "accompanied by captions or comments written in Russian".
"There is an almost industrial approach that is accelerating, with several very high quality front pages, which could be misleading for those not familiar with the newspaper’s editorial line," Malka said.
"There is a clear intention behind this that appears to be pro-Russian propaganda."
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it has deployed information warfare to gain support for the war.
Faking traditional media is part of the pro-Russian Doppelgänger disinformation operation that the EU DisinfoLab brought to attention in 2022.
Charlie Hebdo, which was the target of an Islamist terrorist attack in 2015 after it published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, said it wanted to "defend its image and values" and "dispel any doubts that these manipulations could raise in public opinion".
(with AFP)
