France puzzled by mystery anti-Pfizer campaign offer

Several French social media influencers say they have received a mysterious financial offer to spread negative publicity about the Pfizer vaccine.

They say an agency claiming to be based in the UK has contacted them by email offering a "partnership".

Léo Grasset, who has 1.17m YouTube subscribers, tweeted (in French) that a "colossal budget" was promised from a client "who wants to remain incognito".

He said that the address the agency had given appeared to be bogus.

He said the LinkedIn profiles of the agency's alleged employees he had managed to find later disappeared, but not before he noticed that "everybody there has worked in Russia".

Léo Grasset posted what he said were instructions from the agency, urging him not to use such words as "advertising" or "sponsored video" if he were to agree to the partnership offer.