Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the French Greens and 2027 presidential candidate, has called for the possibility of banning the social network X during election periods if foreign interference is detected.
In an interview with Libération, Tondelier described X as a “source of fake news” with a “rigged algorithm” that exerts a more structural and daily impact on disinformation than discrete foreign influence operations.
She argued that the platform, owned by Elon Musk, should be treated as a content editor rather than a neutral intermediary.
She called for the European Digital Services Act (DSA) to be be strictly enforced on it, including the threat of temporary bans for non-compliance.
“If X stopped for a month, it would do a lot of good to the French public debate,” she said. She accused Musk of holding a “supremacist ideology” and of openly supporting Marine Le Pen, while noting that political and media systems remain heavily dependent on the platform.
Tondelier linked her proposal to wider concerns about Russian and other foreign interference ahead of the 2027 presidential election, following digital attacks that targeted several French politicians during the municipal campaign.
The Green politician continues to have strong concerns despite the fact that official investigations found only minimal effects on the municipal election campaign and authorities believe they have failed to influence the election.
“X’s algorithm is, for me, a much stronger interference in the democratic life of this country because it has, in itself, a much more structural, daily, impact on disinformation every minute”, Tondelier said.
“Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to impose the European legal framework [the Digital Service Act] and to sanction social media platforms that do not act quickly enough to fight against these campaigns, that refuse to transmit information or remove problematic content.
“Threatening platforms like X with a ban during the elections seems necessary to me and this sanction must be applied in the event of interference observed beforehand.”
She also called for stronger measures against media concentration, citing the influence of conservative media magnate Vincent Bolloré, and for greater support for public broadcasting.
The comments come as former European commissioner Thierry Breton has urged the EU to secure its “digital borders” after the Ceuta migration crisis, which he characterised as a large-scale “hybrid algorithmic attack.”
Breton has advocated exporting DSA-style obligations on risk assessment, content moderation, data access and crisis mechanisms to partner countries beyond the Union’s borders.
