"There is a cocktail in place," a source in the intelligence community in France told AFP, adding there were grounds for concern over the issue.
The factors include a "weakening of the socio-economic fabric, a strong movement of protesting digital platforms where it is easy to post conspiratorial comment, as well as upcoming elections" in France next spring, said the source, who asked not to be named.
"These movements have more or less existed for the last 10-15 years. They feed on the sense of an anti-system conspiracy," a senior French intelligence official told AFP.
The official said that there was overlap with small ultra-right fringe groups, while emphasising that people involved increasingly come from "quite varied backgrounds".
Involvement can tear apart families, with loved ones unable to stop relatives falling into the groups' grasp.
Forty-eight-year-old bookseller Paul -- not his real name -- told AFP how his mother had slowly drifted away.
"She lived as a recluse, she spent an incredible amount of time online, looking for answers to her rage against the injustices of the world.
"She consumed YouTube 24 hours a day, the conspiracy channels were her only window to the world. The lockdown was the last straw and Covid confirmed all her theories about the end of the world," he said.
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Anon Braveheart
United States
