France links BlackCore to election interference in New York, Scotland

France’s election watchdog said BlackCore’s alleged interference campaign did not stop at French town halls. Investigators now suspect the same network reached New York City, Scotland, Angola and Togo, turning a local smear effort into a case study in cross-border political manipulation.

Viginum said the technical trail led investigators to BlackCore after French authorities first linked the firm last month to an online campaign against three France Unbowed mayoral candidates in France’s March local elections. The alleged effort used deceptive websites, social media accounts and disparaging digital ads to accuse the candidates of criminal behavior, and French prosecutors opened an investigation into suspected foreign interference.

At a press conference alongside Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Viginum chief Marc-Antoine Brillant said the agency’s analysis had identified BlackCore’s modus operandi, but not the client that commissioned the operation. That distinction matters: the public evidence, as laid out by French officials, points to the mechanics of the campaign and the infrastructure behind it, while the sponsor remains unknown.

Brillant said the same method was not limited to municipal elections in France and appeared to have been used in digital interference efforts in Scotland and in New York’s 2025 municipal election. The watchdog did not publicly name the target of the New York operation, but the linkage broadens the scope of the inquiry far beyond the original French race.

The Scotland angle has become more specific. Additional reporting linked BlackCore-affiliated accounts to attacks on Scotland’s First Minister, John Swinney. Swinney called the findings deeply concerning and urged the UK government to take online interference more seriously, underscoring how quickly a digital operation can spill from one political system into another.

Israel’s embassy in Paris said Israel had no intention of interfering in French politics and would wait for more details from the French probe. The French government has asked Israel for explanations and help determining who was behind the campaign, reflecting the diplomatic strain that often follows attribution claims in influence cases.

The BlackCore case shows how local elections can be pulled into a wider contest over information, trust and political legitimacy. France’s findings suggest that a private operator may be able to tailor the same deceptive playbook across democracies, exploiting municipal races, national offices and online platforms with the same toolkit of false fronts and targeted ads.