Les Surligneurs

Report March 2025

Submitted
Les Surligneurs is an independent fact-checking media outlet based in France whose mission is to fight disinformation, notably in the field of the law, through the publication of legal-checks, fact-checks, analyses, investigations, or the organization of events and debates. 

Les Surligneurs is a verified member of both the IFCN and the EFCSN and follows the highest fact-checking standards. 

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Elections 2024
[Note: Signatories are requested to provide information relevant to their particular response to the threats and challenges they observed on their service(s). They ensure that the information below provides an accurate and complete report of their relevant actions. As operational responses to crisis/election situations can vary from service to service, an absence of information should not be considered a priori a shortfall in the way a particular service has responded. Impact metrics are accurate to the best of signatories’ abilities to measure them].
Threats observed or anticipated
Mitigations in place
Les Surligneurs’ core activity are legal-checks. During the reported period, we extended this activity to fact-checks, while recruiting new journalists and joining the Meta Third Party Fact-Checking program in March 2024. 
Empowering Users
Outline approaches pertinent to this chapter, highlighting similarities/commonalities and differences with regular enforcement.
In addition to its fact-checks and legal-checks, Les Surligneurs published several articles during the European and French elections to provide general information on the issue. We also experimented new formats such as video or illustrated legal-checks. 

Les Surligneurs’ members participated in various auditions, events and publications surrounding disinformation and fact-checking. That includes: (i) an EDMO report on the implementation of the Code of Practice, (ii) the creation of various contents and programs on EU election disinformation, legal checking and platform regulation (a full course at Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a podcast, etc.), (iii) two webinars held by law professors on the French elections, (iv) Vincent Couronne’s regular participation to the leading TV programme of the French channel “Public Sénat”, (v) Guillaume Baticle’s participation to the Infox sur Seine event, (vi) a research program in Beyrouth on AI assisted legal-checking,(vii) Vincent Couronne’s audition by the French Senate investigation committee on foreign interferences, and (viii) Vincent Couronne being a member of the Governance Body and Treasurer of the EFCSN and being elected Secretary General of the Spiil (union of independent press) which concluded a partnership agreement with the Association Pour l’Éducation aux Médias (APEM) in order to give access to more than 200 media outlets in France to MIL trainings and resources. Vincent Couronne is also a member of the strategic committee of the CLEMI in France (Centres Locaux pour l’Éducation aux Médias). At last (ix), Les Surligneurs’ experts published in November 2024 a comparative report on public policies against disinformation (including media literacy) in French-speaking countries in the world, with a specific focus on elections.