Who's behind the viral calls for a 10 September nationwide shutdown in France?

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Who's behind the viral calls for a 10 September nationwide shutdown in France?  Calls to "shut down France" first emerged in fringe online groups. They're now being espoused by the political mainstream.  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/09/01/whos-behind-the-viral-calls-for-a-september-10-nationwide-shutdown-in-france  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00Who's behind calls for a nationwide shutdown in France?

00:07Calls to shut down France on the 10th of September are snowballing online

00:12and have now gained the backing of some political parties and trade unions.

00:16The movement, known as Bloquantou, or Let's Blockade Everything,

00:21is considered a reaction to controversial spending cuts

00:24announced by Prime Minister François Bayrou in July.

00:26He now faces a vote of no confidence, likely to topple his government on 8th of September.

00:32While the campaign reflects the grievances of French citizens,

00:35many are questioning who's behind this murky online movement that claims to be apolitical.

00:41The first online reference to the planned shutdown was made in a May telegram post

00:46by Les Essentiels France, an anti-government group with far-right links.

00:52The calls gained traction in July when Beru announced the budget cuts,

00:56with thousands of online users calling for a complete boycott on September 10th.

01:01Since then, the use of the hashtag linked to the campaign have skyrocketed

01:04and are mostly being used to push anti-government messages

01:07and content-smearing President Emmanuel Macron.

01:11French analysts say the campaign has been propelled by a technique known as astroturfing,

01:16when bot accounts publish thousands of posts linked to the campaign each day.

01:21Many of these bots are disguised as young French females.

01:25They share AI-generated content and fake news,

01:28and also peddle anti-EU and Kremlin-friendly narratives.

01:31The movement has been mainstreamed since various left-wing parties endorsed it in mid-August.

01:36It means the calls are now being pushed by a complex mosaic of left-wing and right-wing activists,

01:42as well as apolitical supporters of the 2018 Yellow Vests movement.

01:47But analysts say there's a strong possibility that the movement's success has been propelled

01:53by an online campaign backed by unspecified foreign actors.

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