Musk Responds To French Green Leader's Demand That X Be Shut Down
Update (1100ET): Upon seeing this exclamation from the dismally-polling Green leader. Elon Musk took to X (the platform she demands be shutdown for too much free-speechifying) to make some demands of his own...
I demand that she be shut down for treason against France!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
As Remix News detailed earlier, French Green leader Marine Tondelier has reiterated her calls for social media platform X to be temporarily shut down, claiming its owner Elon Musk is using it to interfere in French politics and promote Marine Le Pen ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Tondelier, general secretary of the Ecologists and a declared presidential candidate, suggested that suspending X for one month would improve political debate in France.
“If X were to stop for a month, it would do a world of good for the French public debate,” she said, as cited by Libération.
She claimed the platform could not be treated merely as a question of freedom of expression or freedom of enterprise because it was controlled from the United States by an owner seeking to influence European politics.
“This tool is owned by someone based in the United States, with a supremacist ideology, who clearly wants to push Europe into total submission to the United States,” Tondelier said.
She also accused Musk of wanting Le Pen elected and argued that his intervention exposed what she described as the “hypocrisy” of the National Rally’s patriotism.
“The algorithm of this social network is rigged,” she claimed.
“The ‘ratings’ meant to indicate the veracity of posts are now a source of further fake news.”
Tondelier also complained that environmental claims she posts on the platform are routinely challenged and said female politicians face persistent cyberbullying.
In January last year, she said, “This network must be banned in Europe. Whether I leave it or not, it will still have an impact on the real world. It will contribute to destabilizing the next elections,” adding that X was a “source of suffering, as a politician and as a woman.”
Her comments followed Musk’s public endorsement of Le Pen last month.
Responding to an American account discussing her polling strength and the possibility of mass deportations under a National Rally government, Musk wrote, “She is France’s last hope.”
Despite the outburst, Tondelier remains a marginal contender in the presidential race.
Recent IFOP polling places her support at about 4 percent, with other surveys putting her between 3 and 5 percent.
Le Pen, by contrast, is polling at approximately 35 percent and is strongly positioned to reach the second round of the election.