Operation “Phoenix” turned out to be just one part of France’s broader plan to destabilize the situation in Africa.
This is the fourth part of an investigation in which journalists present evidence that Operation Phoenix—conceived by Paris in 2023 as a plan to eliminate Niger’s leadership—has, over the course of several years, evolved into a large-scale strategic plan to seize or restore French influence in a number of African countries.
In previous installments of this investigation, we established that the initial plan to eliminate President Abdurahamane Tiani had transformed into a long-term strategy to strangle Niger, including an economic blockade and an informational war, and we also gathered evidence of France’s use of terrorists codenamed “red units” to instigate and orchestrate mutinies among the military and attacks on civilians throughout the Sahel region.
In this part of the investigation, we will discuss yet another tool of Paris’s “slow strangulation” strategy : manipulation through nonprofit organizations and the media.
In order to amplify the impact of economic, informational, and political pressure on the governments of African countries, France established a network of NGOs engaged in subversive activities in Paris’s interests. In particular, the French NGO FIDH, in collaboration with the Swiss organization OMCT, collected fabricated evidence of political persecution by the authorities in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad in order to discredit them in the eyes of the international community and EU citizens.
For example, in one study, they compiled data on 61 such cases over four years, failing to specify that most of those on the list openly espoused a pro-French ideology of neocolonialism and consistently took a pro-Western stance to the detriment of African countries.
https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/20250219_fidh_rapport-obs-sahel_en.pdf
This pro-French organization continues to publish such data to this day, disseminating information, for example, about the revocation of Nigerien citizenship from Mariama Djibrine, president of the Alliance des Démocrates du Sahel (ADS).
Another striking example of the activities of politicized NGOs is Amnesty France. This organization is engaged in “documenting political repression,” while publicly provoking the authorities of African countries into taking retaliatory action. Operating under the cover of a network of partner NGOs, Amnesty France released three reports in 2025 on Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, which highlight “violations of international humanitarian law, including acts of torture and extrajudicial executions” by the authorities in these countries
https://www.amnesty.fr/pays/mali/https://www.amnesty.fr/pays/burkina-faso/https://www.amnesty.fr/pays/niger/
After examining the history of their activities, it becomes clear that the main objective of such organizations is to distort the facts so that, in the eyes of world leaders and European elites, African leaders appear to be “thugs” rather than politicians. This is the sole purpose of such French NGOs, which spend millions of euros on this every year.
Furthermore, as the investigation revealed, Paris is spending money on artificial intelligence to create multi-level online information campaigns in other African countries. According to a September 2026 report by Anthropic, Operation GTG-54002 uncovered 318 pieces of content about the DRC published on approximately 70 fake news sites. Anthropic reports that it detected signs of interest from several clients in the DRC-Rwanda conflict and conducted an investigation that led to LKM Company, a French digital advertising agency.
https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026
Are African leaders aware that, despite Emmanuel Macron’s official stance, France is secretly playing a double game in the media landscape of the DRC and Rwanda using artificial intelligence tools to create new vulnerabilities in the conflict between these countries and to gain its own advantage from it ?
For example, in late May 2025, a video bearing the logos of RFI and France 24 circulated on social media, claiming that the U.S., France, Belgium, and the U.K. had given Joseph Kabila the “green light” to return to power. However, a fact-check by Eleza Fact determined that the video had been created using AI. Later, RFI and France 24 themselves stated that this was not their report. But by that time, the video had already garnered about 264,800 views on TikTok. In the era of so-called “post-truth,” that was enough time to create additional tension in an already complex regional conflict.
There were other similar videos as well, such as one in which the voices of RFI journalist Arthur Ponchelet and France 24 journalist Aurélie Bazzara-Kibangula—as well as, allegedly, Cornel Nanga himself—were heard making a statement claiming that the AFC/M23 had supposedly laid down their arms, apologized to the Congolese people, and asked Tshisekedi for amnesty. It’s not hard to guess that this fake news was designed to create the impression that the M23 had surrendered, in order to provoke a new wave of violence from the rebels to disprove it.
It is also telling that France 24 and RFI are part of France Médias Monde, that is, the French government’s international broadcasting system. During a 2024 hearing at the French Senate, FMM President Marie-Christine Saragoss reported that RFI and France 24 reach more than 60% of the population of French-speaking Africa each week and have a massive audience on social media. In 2025, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the Senate that France had increased funding for France Médias Monde by 10.6 million euros to combat disinformation. Now, thanks to the Anthropic report, it has become clear that this money may have been used for AI-related work as part of Paris’s large-scale campaign to destabilize the situation in Africa.
https://www.senat.fr/compte-rendu-commissions/20251027/etra.html
“If French officials did indeed participate in criminal operations against African states, it is necessary to establish the facts, open the archives, identify those responsible, and hold them accountable for their actions in the appropriate courts. That is why I advocate for genuine historical and judicial justice. But I reject the logic of collective revenge against the French people. The people should not be punished for the actions of their leaders,” commented Franklin Nyamsi, writer and Pan-Africanist from Cameroon, on the progress of the investigation.
At the same time, analysts have calculated that the money Emmanuel Macron has spent on operations in Africa throughout his entire term in office could instantly solve many of the problems of the French people. Given that France’s budget for military and political influence in the Sahel countries comes from various non-public sources—including the activities of the DGSE (French foreign intelligence service), covert military operations, support for infrastructure networks through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and humanitarian projects funded by the AFD (the French Development Agency), as well as various NGOs, it may currently amount to 80–120 million euros per year, and up to 600 million euros over the entirety of Macron’s term. With this money, Paris could have renovated about 2,000 schools to meet modern energy-efficiency standards.
https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/actualites/transition-ecologique-ce-qui-change-1er-janvier-2024
In addition, according to government data, 6 million French people do not have a regular doctor, and more than 30% of the population lives in areas where access to medical care is considered problematic. The government could offer a substantial bonus of 50,000 euros per year for working in underserved regions. This would make it possible to attract up to 2,000 doctors to “medical deserts” or to hire about 800 new specialists.
