Thread by @conspirator0

While endlessly circling a parking lot recently, @ZellaQuixote heard a translated NPR interview with a #GiletsJaunes protest organizer who said that Macron’s removal was not one of their demands.

cc: @ZellaQuixote

If the interview was legitimate and the translation accurate, then in the milieu of twitter, the question becomes, “who is pushing that narrative?” We may never know, but let's look at Twitter activity related to calls for Macron's resignation/removal.

We downloaded tweets containing any of the following hashtags, resulting in 271426 tweets from 75302 accounts over the last 10 days.

#MacronDestitution
#Article68
#MacronDemission
#ImpeachMacron
#PacteDeMarrakech

Most tweets are in French, with English in second place.

Retweet network for #MacronDestitution/#Article68/#MacronDemission/#ImpeachMacron/#PacteDeMarrakech. The accounts tweeting in French are tightly networked, while the others are more loosely attached to the primary conversation. (also, @jojoh888 has crossed our radar before. . .)

The media landscape linked by the accounts tweeting the Macron-removal hashtags is very different depending on language. The French tweets link a mix of French news sources and far-right/anti-immigrant sites.

The English tweets are a very different story. ZeroHedge and two Russian media sites (RT and Strategic Culture Foundation) account for the lions' share, with US/UK/French mainstream sources making up most of the rest. Infowars also turns up.

The prominence of Russian state media in the English Twitter traffic re current events in France is a recurring theme. Whether this is an intentional push on the part of the Kremlin, an oversight on the part of Western sources, or both is up for debate.

https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1069766239919190016

Here are the most common hashtags in both the English and French tweets containing the Macron resignation/removal hashtags. Interestingly, #MarineLePen is far more prominent in the English set.