Georgia’s ruling party official says France’s remarks on foreign interference align with ruling party’s position

Levan Machavariani, the First Deputy Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream parliamentary faction, on Wednesday said that remarks by French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez on foreign interference in elections were consistent with arguments made by Georgia’s ruling party.

In his interview with Imedi TV, Machavariani referred to Nuñez’s remarks to the French Senate that several European countries, including Georgia, had been targeted by large-scale information manipulation during electoral processes.

“When they need to put forward arguments, they have used exactly the same arguments that we have been making. The United States has also been making similar arguments for nearly a century, as has the United Kingdom when it adopted this law. None of this comes as a surprise to us. We agree with these arguments: protecting any country’s sovereignty requires safeguarding it against external interference, and Georgia was cited as one example”, he noted.

Machavariani added that, in his view, the vast majority of Georgia’s population was convinced of the position the ruling party had been advocating for years.

The French Senate has adopted a bill aimed at combating foreign interference in democratic life, which would allow courts to intervene against the deliberate and mass dissemination of false or misleading information online.