French far-right MEP Sarah Knafo was cleared of “spreading false news” by the Paris prosecutor’s office, closing on a complaint filed by Algeria over a comment she made about aid sent to the North African country.
Knafo, MEP in the European Parliament for French far-right anti-immigration party Reconquête!, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, made her comment on RMC radio on September 20. She said, “do you know, for example, that we are giving 800 million euros to Algeria in public development aid?” and then repeated the claim on X.
Algeria objected the claim and sued Knafo for spreading misinformation on September 25. Two days later, the public prosecutor closed the case, stating that “the offence is not proven.”
The prosecutor explained that Knafo said that France gives 800 million euros per year to Algeria, but in reality the amount is given over five years. Thus, the prosecutor concluded that her remark is “more a case of insufficiently verified and rather imprecise information, than deliberately false.”
In this instance, the prosecutor concluded that two of the elements that make for the offence to be characterized as disseminating false news are “the false nature of the information, but also the fact of causing or risking causing a disturbance of the public peace.” Both elements were not present in Knafo’s remark, according to the authority.
