How Has France Established Itself as a Champion of the European Fight Against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI)?

The paper focuses on political actors, strategies and democratic resilience in order to explore how governments respond to foreign information challenges. More precisely, it contributes to scholarly literature on how European democracies respond to foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), while focusing on a single case study of France. It asks why France responded to Russia’s foreign interference by creating one of the most advanced national counter-FIMI systems in the European Union, and how this response has evolved over time. Drawing on role theory, the paper argues that France’s comprehensive capacity and institution building can be explained by adaptation to a new role conception of defender of the liberal international order. The evolution of the French approach to foreign interference is illuminated by a two-level game model, where international role-taking is shaped by domestic role support and contestation. Empirically, the paper provides a qualitative analysis of institutionalization and evolution of the French counter-FIMI policies: from selective and defensive institution-building to a more comprehensive and offensive approach featuring transnational institutional diffusion.