French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Friday, September 18, that Russian hybrid warfare against Europe and France has intensified in recent weeks, marking a shift in tone for a president who has long preferred discretion on suspected sabotage. According to reporting by Le Monde, Macron convened an unusual meeting at the Élysée Palace with party leaders and declared presidential candidates, briefing them in person on the growing threat and the government's planned response.

The gathering itself was unprecedented. Senior intelligence officials delivered a confidential briefing, supported by documents, in the room where the traditional defense council usually meets, Le Monde reported. Nearly every participant came away persuaded of the seriousness of the situation; only Fabien Roussel, the Communist leader and 2027 presidential candidate, said afterward that he had learned nothing particularly new. The session followed a defense council meeting devoted to the same subject on September 16, signaling that the president now treats the issue as a national priority.

A wave of sabotage across Europe

The warnings arrive after a string of suspicious incidents across Europe that intelligence services have yet to attribute publicly. The day before the Élysée meeting, several railway lines in the Netherlands suffered coordinated sabotage. Five days earlier, on September 11, a regional train derailed between Caen and Rouen after a 300-kilogram section of rail was laid across the tracks, injuring 44 people, one of them an 18-year-old woman who was seriously hurt, Le Monde reported.

France has seen other unexplained incidents. On September 3, two simultaneous fires broke out in Sorgues, near the Eurenco site — France's only military explosives manufacturer — burning 16 hectares, including two hectares inside the plant's perimeter, and requiring some 40 firefighters, four Canadair water-bombers and a helicopter to contain. Earlier, in August, a drone attack on a cargo plane in Leipzig, Germany, was blamed on Russia, and on the night of September 14 to 15, alliance aircraft shot down a drone that had crossed from Belarus into Lithuanian airspace.

Macron told journalists that France had been targeted by Russian hybrid attacks in recent weeks and that such actions would not go unanswered. He has ordered the government to prepare a plan to protect critical infrastructure and defense industry sites. According to Le Monde, the president said the intent behind the campaign was to intimidate European countries and break their support for Ukraine, adding that the effect would be the opposite.

Paris balances warning and restraint

France's approach differs from that of NATO's eastern flank. Macron has adopted a deliberate strategy of restraint, declining to attribute specific new incidents to Moscow even as he warns of the trend, Le Monde noted. That caution contrasts with Poland, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk told lawmakers on September 10 that there was a real risk of drone and missile strikes on NATO territory that Russia would claim were accidental, in what he described as an attempt to split the alliance.

A Russian drone struck a passenger train near Yahodyn, on the Ukraine-Poland border, the previous Sunday, shortly after former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and senior European security officials had traveled the same line; Ukrainian officials said all passengers were evacuated minutes before the strike hit the train's engine, according to reporting cited by the Washington Examiner. Macron cited the same incident when urging European leaders to remain united in the face of the pressure campaign.

The stakes keep rising. Sweden joined Germany in military exercises near the strategic Baltic island of Gotland, while Switzerland adopted a new security policy strategy on Friday to harden itself against hybrid threats and critical dependencies, the Washington Examiner reported. NATO has said there is no imminent threat of a Russian attack, while stressing it will not be naive or complacent. More experts now argue that the term Russian hybrid warfare understates what is happening — some say it should simply be called war, though others caution that such language should not obscure the reality that open conflict would look very different.

For now, Paris faces the familiar dilemma of how to answer suspected attacks without confirming them publicly. Sanctions, the seizure of ghost fleet vessels and the expulsion of Russian agents have all proven costly for Moscow but have not stopped the escalation. As the French government draws up its protection plan, Macron's message to the political class was blunt: no one is safe, and Europe's security will be decided by whether its support for Ukraine holds. Readers following Europe's security debates can also explore GenZ NewZ's war coverage for related reporting.