In France, Brittany-based media outlets vandalised by nationalist group

In March, nationalist stickers and flyers signed by the Breton Patriots' Movement (MPB) began appearing on the doors of newsrooms in Brittany. The MPB's Facebook page calls for "a stronger, more united Brittany that takes greater control of its own destiny."

Two MPB stickers were discovered on the door of a hub for Breton-language associations known as a Tir Ar Vro centre in the town of Guingamp, which houses the investigative media outlet Splann! as well as a branch of the community radio station Radio Kreiz Breizh. This was on 2 March. On 10 March, Le Poher, a weekly news publication based in Central Brittany, was targeted by the same stickers on the glass door of its editorial office, in the town of Carhaix. The weekly was targeted a second time during the night of 20 to 21 March when more printed materials reappeared. The perpetrator, who was captured on the paper's CCTV appeared to make a gesture resembling a Nazi salute while vandalising the premises.

Several other regional media outlets in Brittany have also been subject to these attacks. On 27 March, posters bearing the MPB logo were found on the doors of the editorial offices shared between France's most-read daily - the regional paper Ouest-France - and the local weekly L'Écho de l'Armor et de l'Argoat.

Splann!, Le Poher, and Ouest-France have all filed complaints following the malicious acts.

The first MPB-branded stickers on the walls of the newsroom of the Le Poher weekly dates back to the summer of 2024 and appeared in the wake of threats received by some of the newsroom's journalists. The weekly notably filed a complaint against the "Republican Resistance" association and far-right activist Bernard Germain called the paper a "miserable rag" and one of its journalists a "pathetic little collaborator."The first threats against the Breton media outlet began to escalate in early 2023, primarily in the form of emails and phone calls which included a false bomb threat. Since then, Le Poher has filed several complaints.

In a recent RSF report titled "France: local news on the front line", the NGO highlighted the importance of local media outlets to democracy and warned of the pressure they are under. While local journalists are threatened, attacked, and targeted by SLAPP suits, media outlets themselves are under significant economic pressure and forced to innovate to survive.