Posts alleged Jewish elites had orchestrated the unrest, that Israel or the Mossad was responsible.
By Shula Rosen
Antisemitic claims blaming Jews, Israel and the Mossad for unrest in France spread across X between October 16 and 18, generating 1,384 posts from 816 accounts, according to a social media analysis by CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center.
The report found seven posts that called for violence against Jews or their expulsion or extermination.
Researchers said the broader campaign portrayed the unrest as a deliberate operation orchestrated by Jews, “Zionists,” Israel or the Mossad rather than a domestic French crisis.
One post by @LearnToToad said: “Whatever’s happening in France, the root cause is actually Jewish capture of the West”
Another post by @A13Beast: “The Civil War sought by the Jewish elite has finally begun in France”
English-language posts dominated the discussion, accounting for 69% of posts and 86% of views.
French represented 21% of posts and 8% of views, while Arabic accounted for 5% of posts and 4% of views and Spanish for 3% of posts and 2% of views.
Researchers found that Islamist accounts generated the largest share of posts at 30%, followed by far-right accounts at 21%.
Far-right content, however, received 34% of views, compared with 23% for Islamist posts. Conspiracist accounts produced 14% of posts and received 11% of views, while far-left accounts accounted for 4% of posts and 2% of views.
According to the report, the narrative began before the protests and initially circulated mainly in French.
Researchers identified 74 posts during the first 24 hours. After the protests became violent, English-language accounts increasingly promoted the claims, with another 784 posts appearing the following day.
Among the narratives were allegations that Jewish elites had orchestrated the unrest, that Israel or the Mossad was responsible and that “Zionists” were manipulating events.
Other posts connected the violence to conspiracy theories involving immigration, the Rothschild family and French President Emmanuel Macron.
CAM analyzed 18,381 posts collected from X through 25 searches in seven languages. Researchers manually reviewed 4,922 candidate text groups and separately examined the 100 most-viewed posts.
The report flagged 20 posts, totaling 234,860 views, as possible false positives. Researchers also said their searches could miss posts relying entirely on coded language, meaning the totals represent minimum counts.
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