The French Embassy in Bucharest has publicly reacted after George Simion, the AUR candidate in the presidential elections, accused France of involvement in manipulating the May 18th election.
In a message posted on Facebook, the embassy reiterated the position of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which categorically rejects the accusations of interference.
"The allegations circulating about a supposed French interference in the Romanian presidential election are completely unfounded," wrote the Embassy representatives in a Facebook message.
Representatives of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs recently conveyed a strong message through the official spokesperson: "France calls on everyone to take responsibility, but above all, to respect Romanian democracy."
This position comes in response to the statements made by George Simion, as well as a controversial post by Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who suggested without naming that a Western European country had requested the reduction of visibility for certain conservative voices in Romania.
Simion accuses "electoral tourism" and network manipulation
George Simion announced that he would challenge the results of the presidential elections at the Constitutional Court, citing alleged foreign interference. However, without success.
He accused the government of the Republic of Moldova of organizing "electoral tourism" and the French authorities of manipulating social media algorithms.
"100 million euros were allocated in the Republic of Moldova for electoral tourism and buying the will of the Moldovan Romanians," said Simion.
Baseless insinuations
To support these accusations, Simion cited alleged observations made by "international observers," without presenting concrete evidence. He suggested that social media networks were manipulated by the French authorities against him: "Algorithms were used to influence Romanian citizens."
Tensions were fueled by a post from Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, who stated that a Western European government had requested the censorship of conservative voices in Romania, suggesting this through an emoticon with a wand - a symbol interpreted as a reference to France. The French Ministry denied any connection, describing the suggestion as "unfounded."
George Simion lost the elections by a margin of 829,603 votes (7.2%).