Two Frenchmen in the crosshairs of the Hungarian intelligence services

Budapest

The secret services of various European countries are active ahead of the European elections, fearing interference attempts by Russia. In France, the DGSI has a strong interest in the European catalog project put together by former MEP (National Front/National Rally) Jean-Luc Schaffhauser from 2014 to 2019, whose program “ For peace with Russia » Raises suspicion. Hungarian intelligence services are interested in two French nationals who have long lived in Budapest, in coordination with identification and display operations conducted in several countries such as France, the Czech Republic and Poland, the Economic Weekly reports. HVG.

The first is none other than Jean-Luc Schaffhauser’s former parliamentary assistant, Nicolas de Lamberteri. Trained at the Sciences Po in Strasbourg, the first worker in the Alsace movement, he is today almost ” Hungarian far right veteran

“, as designated HVG. In the late 2000s, he joined the 64 Counties Youth Movement (HVIM), campaigning for the autonomy of regions lost by Hungary after the First World War and gravitating around the far-right Jobbik party. , then fully increase

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Another person of interest in Hungarian counter-espionage is Francois-Magyar Francois Lavallou who settled in Budapest in 2010, where he founded a news site. Visegrad post, under the pseudonym Ferenc Almasy. Two French people work together for this online media which has received financial support from YouTube channel TV Liberties, was founded by a former executive of the National Front Martial Build, and the Hungarian Ministry of Culture gave him a grant equivalent to ten thousand euros. However, it should be noted that, for the moment, no link or financing has been established by Russia. ” We are neither spies nor paid by Russia », responded François Lavalleau, who ” Pre-election McCarthyism against a backdrop of conspiracy “

European Alliance

This is not the case for news sites Voice of Europe Based in the Czech Republic. On 27 March, Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that the Czech Intelligence Services (BIS) had uncovered a propaganda network directed and financed by Moscow. Undermining the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine

” The site was taken offline and its head, Viktor Medvedchuk, was placed on a national sanctions list against Russia. According to the BIS, “ Its content was directly controlled and financed by the Russian Federation. Money from Moscow has also been used to pay some political representatives who spread Russian propaganda. (…) One of the objectives was to try to influence the European Parliament elections “

In Hungary, Nicolas de Lamberteri and François Lavallou are close to László Toroczkai, president of the far-right Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party, which holds 6 of the 199 seats in the National Assembly. The latter demonstrated against NATO a month after the invasion of Ukraine and recently spoke in favor of returning the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia to Hungarian rule. In late August 2023, Nicolas de Lamberteri and Lásző Toroczkai participated in a gathering in Budapest of members of the Swedish, Swiss, Czech and Bulgarian far-rights, with a view to joining the European Parliament. This in the presence of Guillaume Pradora, the parliamentary assistant of the French RN, the German AfD and the Dutch FVD respectively, and who will be the European envoy of Jean-Luc Schaffhauser.

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All this is not new, the journalist recalls HVG Andres Dezzo. At the turn of the 2010s, a Hungarian MEP from the Jobbik party, named Béla Kovacs, tried to bring together a coalition of European nationalist parties favorable to reconciliation with Moscow. Sentenced to five years in prison by Hungarian courts in 2022 for spying against European Union institutions, he disappeared from the radar. According to Andreas Dezzo, he is in… Russia, where he obtained refugee status.