Vignette: Republican Royal Racket
- cepmurphywrites
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
By Charles Cartwright.
On the Sea Lion Press Forums, we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly).
The theme for the 91st contest was Cons.
Question 14.
Read the case study below then answer the subsequent questions in your answer booklet.
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Case Study: Fake Campaign for Restoration of the French Monarchy
During the political and economic crisis in France in late 2028 (which eventually led to the formation of the Sixth Republic in 2032), many new political parties and campaign groups were set up. Some of these endured whilst others vanished as quickly as they appeared. One of the latter was a scam which fooled thousands of people not just in France but also further afield.
The Campaign for the Restoration of the Monarchy (Campagne pour la restauration de la monarchie) first came to public notice through an announcement on Facepage on the 4th of October 2028, seventy years to the day after the Fifth Republic had been established. The announcement contained a link to a separate web‑site which gave the campaign’s raison d’être, included statements of support from various celebrities, and asked people to sign up to support it. According to the site, the campaign had been officially registered, with a link provided to view this registration. The intent of the campaign was simple in concept: to replace the position of elected president with a monarch, making France a constitutional monarchy similar to the Netherlands, Belgium and other European nations (the UK was not mentioned anywhere on the site).
Support was requested to enable the campaign to enter candidates in the next national elections. If enough of those candidates were to win to enable the campaign to form part of the next government, they would press for a referendum to dissolve the Fifth Republic (as it then was) and appoint a monarch. Should the referendum pass, an election would be held for the position of monarch, with four candidates to be on the ballot paper: Jean, Count of Paris; Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou; Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon; and Charles, Prince Napoléon. Both the Orléanist and Legitimist claimants to the French throne (Jean and Louis Alphonse respectively) were stated to be supporters of the campaign and to have agreed to accept the result of the proposed royal election. Apart from being named as potential candidates in that election, neither Bonapartist claimant was mentioned further.
The ‘how you can help’ section of the site requested four specific types of support:
Firstly, people were asked to nominate candidates for the national election the following year, either themselves or a third party. People were asked to fill in a nomination form, available on the site, with personal details of the nominee, the person nominating (if different) and two seconders.
Secondly, people were asked to display posters and stickers in support of the campaign. These could be bought through the site. The site also promised that other merchandise would be available ‘soon’ – such as mugs, tea-towels and so on – which could be pre-ordered on payment of a €0:50 deposit for each item.
Thirdly, people were asked to support with campaign donations, using a PayFriend account which, if queried, showed as a registered account named ‘campagne-monarchique.’ The site displayed a running total of donations so far, along with three target amounts of €30 million, €50 million and €70 million, with explanations of how these amounts would enable more effective advertising and campaigning in the election. Visitors to the site were warned not to donate more than they could afford and that only donations of less than €7500 would be accepted, in line with the law on donations to political parties.
Lastly, people were asked to help choose an official flag for the campaign, which it was hoped would later be adopted as the new royal standard, with the tricolour to remain as the national flag. Various options were displayed, including various French kings’ standards and flags of the Kingdom of France through the centuries, both before and after the Revolution. People were asked either to vote for one of these flags or to propose another, with the only stipulation being that any new flag must contain some sort of reference to the older flags, such as the fleur-de-lys.
Over the next few months, the campaign gained popularity, kept in public view by continuing posts on Toc‑Tic, Snapperchat, Z and others. Posters and stickers could be seen all over France, with some appearing in other countries too, as far afield as Chile, South Africa and the Philippines. It broke through into the ‘traditional’ media as well, with questions about it even being asked at the press conference following the meeting in April 2029 between the outgoing French President and the new President of the USA.
By the end of June 2029, the donations meter on the web-site showed that donations had reached a total of over €26 million from nearly 600,000 donors. Another counter showed that 1824 people had been nominated as candidates, which would enable the campaign to field candidates in all 577 constituencies of the National Assembly. There had been over 250 entries for the ‘royal flag’ competition and a number of rounds of voting had reduced these to just three. The final round of voting started on 30th June, with the result to be announced at noon on le 14 juillet (14th July), the 240th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille.
At 11:49am on 14th July, the web-site went off-line. Comments on online fora from that time show that the majority opinion was that it had gone down due to the heavy demand on the servers, as the number of visitors on the site had for the first time reached two million just before this. It soon became clear that this was not the case.
At 12:00pm exactly, the web-site appeared again, but its appearance had changed completely. The site now consisted of just one page displaying a few words in large type – C'est une illusion – underneath which was a hitherto unseen flag image:
Investigations were soon started. It was quickly established not only that the money donated had vanished but that the amount was much more than had been stated on the site. Examination of the PayFriend account showed that nearly €76 million had been donated, almost three times as much as had been shown on the site, with donations having come from nearly 1½ million separate donors, not the 600,000 stated. Payments for posters and stickers appeared to have been processed legitimately but no record could be found of any other merchandise orders, meaning that all the €0:50 deposits paid, believed to total at least €10,000 and possibly as much as €30,000, had also disappeared.
Whilst the missing money made the most headlines, investigators also expressed concern about stolen personal data. The site had offered buyers of its merchandise the option to ‘save payment details for later’ and it seemed likely to investigators that those running the site therefore also had details of all the entered card numbers, PayFriend account numbers, etc, all matched with names, postal addresses, e-mail addresses and, in most cases, phone numbers, from the hundreds of thousands of people who had bought from the web-site. Anyone voting in the various rounds of the flag competition had been required to enter an e-mail address, ostensibly to minimise the chance of multiple voting. In addition, the form for nomination of potential candidates had required the full name, home address, mobile phone number and e-mail address of every person named on it. If the figure of 1824 nominations was correct, then these personal details of nearly 5000 people could have been stolen. Taking all of these things together made this potentially one of the largest data thefts in France in the previous ten years.
The ‘official registration’ of the campaign also turned out to be false, as did the agreements of the two royal claimants. When questioned, both claimants stated that they had never been approached by anyone about taking part nor had they agreed to being candidates in any ‘royal election.’ Sources close to both claimants confirmed that they had each decided, independently, not to publicly disown the campaign as they believed that the other would then accuse them of running scared of the election.
In the wake of the scam, there was immense public and political pressure to find the perpetrators. Accusations were quickly levelled at Action Française but the party leadership strongly denied any involvement and police investigations showed no link. PayFriend came in for substantial criticism and later announced that it was implementing new systems in an attempt to prevent criminals using its accounts. In late 2030 two people were arrested and questioned about the fraudulent site, but prosecutors could not amass enough evidence and neither was charged. To date, no-one has been charged with any offence and the missing millions of euros are still missing. No data is publicly available to show how many people have been affected by having their personal data stolen and/or misused.
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Questions:
a) List three ways in which this scam differs from the scam in Qu 13. [6 marks]
b) In your opinion, was the primary purpose of this scam to make money, harvest personal information or a combination of both? Give at least two reasons for your answer. [5 marks]
c) Identify two elements of the scam which helped it to appear legitimate and explain how each linked to a more dangerous element. [6 marks]
d) Describe two precautions which internet users could take to protect themselves from this type of scam. [6 marks]
e) Using knowledge from your wider studies, describe two actions taken by governments to attempt to prevent these types of scams. For each action, state whether or not it has been effective and explain your reasons for deciding this. [12 marks]
Charles Cartwright is a contributing author to Apocalypse How?
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