Paris, France:
“It’s not a virus, it’s a tool to use power,” says Monique Lustig in the Netherlands, whilst in Germany, Hellmuth Mendel argues that “Covid is a story invented by an international financial mafia”. “And what if this was all just a film?” asks Christophe Charret in France.
From The Hague to Stuttgart and Paris, they claim to be battling the manage of their minds by a ruling class that invented the Covid-19 pandemic for its personal ends, seeing themselves as advertising and disseminating option views from the official version.
Conspiracy theories, driven by the international overall health crisis, are taking root in Europe more than ever, drawing inspiration from the QAnon movement in the United States.
Accounts supporting the theories have been purged from Twitter and YouTube immediately after breaking the regulations of the social media giants.
Proponents have taken to other platforms to publish details — mainly false — which they claim “mainstream” media are hiding.
AFP reporters spent months searching into this atmosphere of conspiracy theories on the continent, obtaining anything from adherents of QAnon, ultra-evangelicals and anti-vaxxers, to suitable-wing populists, the unemployed and even medical doctors.
They make up a disparate mix of movements and views but their increasing energy is worrying Western European intelligence services who worry that democracies could be destabilised.
“Conspiracy theories have taken off significantly with social networks. We see now that people are organising themselves in clandestine cells. Obviously, it is a threat,” stated France’s national intelligence coordinator Laurent Nunez, acknowledging that QAnon theories have arrived in the nation.
European groups affiliated to QAnon or connected to the movement are increasing on social media.
Some 30,000 subscribers of messaging app Telegram adhere to the so-referred to as DeQodeurs in France, more than one hundred,000 adhere to German conspiracy theory figures Attila Hildmann and Xavier Naidoo, whilst practically 150,000 adhere to Briton Charlie Ward, who provides subscribers a close to incessant flow of pro-Donald Trump montages.
“There is a cocktail in place,” a supply in the intelligence neighborhood in France told AFP, adding there have been grounds for concern more than the problem.
The variables incorporate a “weakening of the socio-economic fabric, a strong movement of protesting digital platforms where it is easy to post conspiratorial comment, as well as upcoming elections” in France next spring, stated the supply, who asked not to be named.
“These movements have more or less existed for the last 10-15 years. They feed on the sense of an anti-system conspiracy,” a senior French intelligence official told AFP.
The official stated that there was overlap with compact ultra-suitable fringe groups, whilst emphasising that men and women involved increasingly come from “quite varied backgrounds”.
Involvement can tear apart households, with loved ones unable to cease relatives falling into the groups’ grasp.
Forty-eight-year-old bookseller Paul — not his true name — told AFP how his mother had gradually drifted away.
“She lived as a recluse, she spent an incredible amount of time online, looking for answers to her rage against the injustices of the world.
“She consumed YouTube 24 hours a day, the conspiracy channels have been her only window to the world. The lockdown was the last straw and Covid confirmed all her theories about the finish of the world,” he said.
Bete noire Bill Gates
In mid-March, under the low sky of Uithoorn, a peaceful town south of Amsterdam, Lange Frans has a warm welcome for visitors to his recording studio.
“No mask right here,” says the rapper who enjoyed a degree of success in the 1990s, with a tone of mockery, boasting how he had taken part in a concert without any social distancing a day earlier.
In recent years, his podcasts have become hugely popular in the Netherlands.
They take the form of two-hour talk shows, where he invites a personality to take an “option” look at the news.
Subjects can range from Covid-19 and the disappearance of Flight MH370 to child crime and UFOs — anything to stimulate the world of conspiracies.
He takes aim at Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who has fought for decades to improve access to vaccines and is a bete noire for conspiracy theorists.
“Take Bill Gates, men and women must obtain out about him,” said Lange Frans in his studio, dotted with pictures of ACDC and guitars.
“Always look at the cash. You can only make cash on the remedy if men and women really think they are sick.
“He has no medical degree or expertise in vaccines,” he insisted.
Gates has ploughed billions of his private fortune into a philanthropic foundation he heads with his wife Melinda — they are now divorcing — that champions simple overall health care.
For Lange Frans — a stage name which translates as Tall Frans — whose YouTube channel is routinely shut down, the Covid-19 pandemic is above all a “soap opera” and a “supermarket flu” that the media serve up all day extended.
That Sunday, the day prior to parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, 3,000 men and women protested coronavirus restrictions in the centre of The Hague amid a carnival atmosphere closely watched by police.
The Netherlands had been rocked weeks earlier by quite a few nights of hugely uncommon riots when a curfew was imposed.
In the demonstration, populist activists, critics of a “world government” and promoters of organic medicines stood shoulder to shoulder.
A widespread denominator united them — scepticism in the face of the official line on the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s not a virus, it’s a tool to use power. The elite of the world has been organising this. Yes, for so many people it’s too crazy to imagine it’s true. But they have been working on it for more than 20 years,” stated Monique Lustig, a restaurant owner.
A tiny additional on, Jeffrey, a 21-year-old student, distributes leaflets denouncing in certain the “Great Reset”, a program by the World Economic Forum to revive the economy immediately after Covid-19.
He alleges it conceals hidden aims of controlling freedoms and decreasing populations.
“I want people to know it’s not a pandemic, it’s a plan to reset the world,” he stated.
Along with Gates, the founder and chief of the Davos-based Forum Klaus Schwab is yet another target of conspiracy theorists’ anger.
“The globalist elite are taking advantage of the situation to create a new society. There are thousands here convinced that this is not a pandemic,” stated Ard Pisa, a former banker who has now come to be an advocate of option medicine to remedy cancer.
“Eight million children disappear every year, it’s part of our world, we must not close our eyes. There are a lot of cases of hushed-up paedophilia,” he continued, repeating one of the favourite themes of QAnon supporters.
That figure — routinely evoked by kid protection NGOs — in reality contains reported disappearances, such as runaways.
An overwhelming majority of such situations are eventually resolved, with the children protected.
Europe’s QAnon
The gathering in The Hague was not exceptional in Europe.
Protests against limitations aimed at fighting Covid-19 systematically draw significant numbers of conspiracy theorists.
In Denmark, members of the Men in Black group insist that the coronavirus is just a “scam”, whilst in Berlin, demonstrations against restrictions can rally up to 10,000 men and women, lots of brandishing QAnon flags.
“QAnon is a point of convergence for extreme right-wing groups, people who believe in UFOs, those who think that 5G (wireless technology) will be used to control people,” stated Tom de Smedt, a Belgian researcher and author of quite a few research on the development in the movement in Europe.
QAnon, which was born in the United States, came to international prominence with the storming of the Capitol in January in the course of the last days of the Trump administration.
It requires its name from cryptic messages posted by an person calling themself “Q”, believed to be a senior US official close to Trump.
Very active in the US due to the fact 2017, QAnon notably defends the concept that a “deep state”, driven by a handful of elites, guidelines the world order.
The fake Pizzagate scandal, exactly where US Democrats have been accused of heading a paedophile network, is one of the keystones of their ideology.
Their false claims can occasionally challenge even the imagination, such as a current assertion that 1,000 children have been freed from the Ever Given ship which blocked the Suez Canal, as aspect of an international trafficking ring fomented by Hillary Clinton.
‘Control of conscience’
For Christophe Charret, a French businessman with an affable character and athletic physique, “the messages of Q are the bible of the conspiracy theorist”.
It is the evening when French Prime Minister Jean Castex is about to announce on live tv that considerably of France will be place into a new de-facto lockdown.
But Charret has not bothered to turn his Television on.
Instead, he is in his compact workplace in the basement exactly where he is preparing to seem on the every day news bulletin of the Human Alliance, an association with 12,000 subscribers on Telegram which analyses the news in conspiratorial style.
The opening credits set the tone.
Against music worthy of Hollywood blockbusters, photos adhere to one yet another without the need of pause, working with the complete gamut of ammunition in the conspiracy theorist’s arsenal — J.F. Kennedy, September 11, 5G, vaccines, Donald Trump, and — of course — Bill Gates.
“The world is led by a financial-technological conglomerate which controls the sovereignty of peoples. Technology makes it possible to do troubling things. Control of conscience, in particular, is not a myth,” Charret says, an illuminated letter ‘Q’ glowing behind him.
That evening, he seems in a video that racks up some 30,000 views, speaking about vaccines, US President Joe Biden but also highlighting humanitarian action organised by the association which raises funds for students in need to have.
“We are at a tipping point for the world, two camps clash and those in charge are not our friends. They will do everything to not let go of the reins.
“But the forces are working for a future D-Day. Things are becoming ready,” he warned, while insisting all engagement will be peaceful and rejecting violence.
Telegram, the hugely popular messaging app created by Russian tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov, has always insisted it takes full measures against extremist content while providing a secure forum for freedom of expression.
Deep-rooted anger
Diehard QAnon adherents remain relatively discreet and rare in Europe — the core of the movement remains deeply American.
But their ideological beliefs have proved influential in Europe.
“Even if all European QAnons assistance the normal narrative — that is to say they assistance Trump and far-suitable concepts — every group adapts these messages to neighborhood situations,” said the director of strategy at the Israeli cybersecurity company ActiveFence, Nitzan Tamari.
But the disappointment of seeing Biden inaugurated as US president after his victory over Trump did dampen the hopes of some believers, as social media giants increasingly take action against them.
“At this moment, QAnon is like a hurt crab retreating into its shell. Twitter did a quite thorough job with removing QAnon accounts,” de Smedt said.
The digital purging however has not yet pulled up the roots of these theories that allowed them to become successful in the first place.
“You do not see the usual hashtags and photos but the sentiments did not just go away. You nonetheless have men and women who think components of conspiracy theory.
“Most of the sentiments were not necessarily left-wing or right-wing politically but anti-establishment and against any government,” de Smedt added.
Battle in the media
Many rumours relayed by way of Telegram groups typically go beyond the conspiratorial really hard core and occasionally finish up getting into the public debate.
In January, thousands of messages all of a sudden started denouncing on social networks a purported program to make “masturbation rooms” for children at a creche in Teltow, south of Berlin.
The details, spread by some elected members of the far-suitable AfD party, even prompted a member of the ruling majority to criticise the alleged initiative.
In reality, it had all began with an report in a neighborhood newspaper exactly where misinterpreted quotes have been blown out of all proportion on social media.
In France, the 2020 on the internet documentary “Hold-Up”, a montage lasting almost 3 hours, provided a platform for conspiratorial stories from medical doctors, deputies, researchers and sociologists, held with each other by fluent editing.
It has been seen by quite a few million men and women, in spite of becoming removed by a quantity of video platforms shortly immediately after it was released.
Denounced by lots of MPs from France’s ruling party as conspiratorial propaganda, it has come to be a point of reference for all these who doubt official narratives, what ever their political affiliation.
“This film is a synthesis of all the dynamics of the conspiracy movement right now. They make their mark with speeches everywhere and we have to do this too,” stated an official from President Emmanuel Macron’s party, who asked not to be named, as elections loom in one year.
In 2019, a study by the Jean Jaures Foundation showed that the electorate of French far-suitable leader Marine Le Pen was by far the most inclined to think in conspiracy theories, with 35 % against an typical of 21 % nationwide in France.
‘Gateway to extremism’
In the Netherlands, immediately after a campaign focused on opposing anti-Covid-19 measures and fed by conspiratorial rhetoric, the populist eurosceptic Forum for Democracy party quadrupled its quantity of parliamentary seats in legislative elections.
In Urk, a compact fishing town nestled inside the ultra-Protestant “Bible Belt”, the Forum made its greatest progress in coming third.
Like other European populist parties, it does not overtly flirt with conspiracy theories but has a sufficiently ambiguous and appealing discourse for an electorate typically tired of politics.
“People here have doubts about the vaccine” against Covid-19, stated neighborhood priest Alwin Uitslag.
“There are medical reasons — we don’t know the effects of the vaccine — but also religious reasons. Do we believe in God or do we believe in the vaccine? God gives us health and disease. Can we interfere with his plans?” he told AFP.
In the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, a stronghold of German opposition to Covid-19 restrictions, Christina Baum is providing a speech in the early spring sunshine.
A couple of days prior to the regional elections in the southwestern German state, Baum, regional spokeswoman on overall health troubles for the AfD party, addresses the problem of Covid-19 with her supporters, without the need of a mask or any taboos.
One supporter, Hellmuth Mendel, describes Covid-19 as a “fable of the criminal international financial mafia”.
For Baum, there is no query of contradicting such opinions. In the AfD, all views are welcome, she says.
“With Covid, theories I had never heard of before emerged. And I find it fascinating. What do you want to do with these people? Do you want to tell them that they are completely excluded from society? It is not possible. We must seek dialogue with everyone,” she told AFP.
A February 2021 report by quite a few NGOs, such as the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, stated that these who vote for far-suitable parties have a “stronger tendency” to think in conspiracy theories linked to Covid-19, such as one in 5 AfD voters.
But in Germany, the “Querdenken”, or unconventional considering movement that challenges official narratives is beneath reinforced surveillance due to its hyperlinks with movements close to the intense suitable who openly query the constitution.
“We are looking here at a clearly limited group of people and we see that they have had contact with the extremist scene. Conspiracy theories can accelerate radicalisation and be a gateway to extremism,” stated a German intelligence official in Baden-Wuerttemberg, who asked not to be named.
‘Tidal wave’
European intelligence officials now openly worry that conspiracy theories could lead to a destabilisation of democracies.
“We are worried that these individuals could turn to violent acts,” stated the senior French intelligence official, also expressing concern more than Russian state media interference by way of English-language channel RT and the Sputnik news network.
In Germany “the atmosphere in recent times at demonstrations has become much more aggressive,” stated the intelligence official in Stuttgart.
“What is most dangerous for me is not the handful of radicals, it is the kind of tidal wave that leads to mistrust and an increasingly strong mistrust towards institutions,” stated Sylvain Delouvee, a social psychologist at France’s University of Rennes.
It remains to be seen if such a wave will develop in intensity politically.
Legislative elections in Germany this year and French presidential polls in 2022 will be vital tests, with the pandemic nonetheless a aspect.
“What is key is to know if the (French presidential) election will channel — or not — this desire for protest expression,” stated the supply in the French intelligence neighborhood.
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