PARIS — The French government explored ways of blocking social networks during last Saturday’s protests, two people familiar with the plan told POLITICO.

In the week leading up to Oct. 24, the French interior ministry was in touch with telecom operators to explore ways of cutting access to social networks or even to mobile internet in specific areas to prevent rioters from coordinating, according to one government official from the Prime Minister’s office and one employee of a telecom company.

The push culminated in Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu directly asking French telecom operators to be ready to block access to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X, in a letter revealed by French digital outlet Blast, which first reported on the government’s request.

Contacted by POLITICO, officials from Lecornu’s office, the technology ministry and the interior ministry did not deny the move nor the letter’s existence.

The government feared that the scenes of violence seen on Oct. 17 could repeat or escalate on the following weekend — a concern that did not materialize, as far fewer incidents were recorded on Oct. 24.

“What they wanted, above all, was to block the communication channels that allow gangs to meet up and organize,” said the employee of a telecommunications provider, who was granted anonymity to speak freely.

The move, however, would have also prevented peaceful protesters from communicating as well. Blocking access to social networks in a targeted area, such as a specific neighborhood, is not technically possible, while cutting access to mobile internet would cause major disruptions to other key services such as mobile payments, security-surveillance devices and emergency communications.

The government also considered a less radical solution that would disable geolocation display features “to prevent gatherings of people who don’t know each other, for example,” according to the official from the prime minister’s office.

Other limitations on social media access are being discussed in parliament as part of the debate on the so-called “who breaks pays” bill, which would hold people who “knowingly took part” in a riot financially responsible — whether or not they committed property damage themselves.

The same bill would require platforms to remove within 24 hours content that incites physical or sexual assault, theft, destruction, or property damage, “when such content is likely to cause a serious disturbance to public order” and within one hour content that encourages insurrection.

Other lawmakers are proposing measures ranging from tracking troublemakers via algorithmic video surveillance to penalizing online marketplaces that fail to prevent the sale of stolen goods.

An Israeli surveillance technology firm has run a large-scale operation to infect mobile phones with spyware using online advertisements to hack the devices, researchers said on Thursday.

An investigation by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and cybersecurity firm Confiant Threat Intelligence laid bare an ad-based infection technique developed by an Israeli company that researchers named “AdFection.” The hacks weaponized legitimate online ad systems for espionage purposes, allowing spyware manufacturers to connect to millions of devices and identify, track and target victims.

“Plugging into the online ads ecosystem provides the mercenary spyware industry a stealthy delivery system,” said Bill Marczak, senior researcher at The Citizen Lab. He said the findings were “surely just the tip of the iceberg” of how online ads are abused for espionage.

Researchers discovered critical details of the hacking tools by analyzing devices belonging to journalists and staff at the Al Jazeera media network, finding that 45 devices of journalists and staff were targeted and some infected with Israeli-made spyware known as Candiru.

At the heart of the hacking campaign is the Israeli company Discover-Tech that describes itself as an advertising business. Citizen Lab researchers said the company facilitated surveillance for commercial spyware operators. Its platform, called Controlium, allegedly allowed spyware makers like Candiru — which in 2025 was acquired by Integrity Labs — to identify, track and target devices by loading advertisements on websites and apps.

Discover-Tech and Integrity Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The scale is striking: An analysis of four billion advertising records found that Discover-Tech’s ads appeared across nearly 200,000 websites and mobile apps in dozens of countries over four months. Among the websites that featured the ads were institutional sites of NATO, the United Nations, the European Parliament, European Commission and Council of the EU.

The technique exploits real-time bidding — the automated system used by platforms such as Google to sell advertising space and target users. Rather than persuading victims to click a malicious link, attackers can exploit advertisements to identify and potentially infect devices without any interaction from the user — a technique known as “zero-click” infections.

Discover-Tech’s advertisements directed millions of devices to servers associated with Candiru, potentially enabling large-scale surveillance and reconnaissance, researchers said. That does not mean all those devices were infected.

Citizen Lab, based in Toronto, is a globally recognized research group that previously uncovered spyware scandals targeting Catalan political figures, a member of the European Parliament and the inner circle of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The findings triggered calls for further investigation on Thursday. “The possibility that EU institutions have been exposed should set off alarm bells across Brussels,” said Hannah Neumann, a German European Parliament lawmaker of the Greens group. Neumann herself was the victim of a cyber-espionage operation by an Iranian hacking group.

“Europe cannot claim to defend democracy while leaving its own democratic institutions vulnerable to spyware,” Neumann said.