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The anti-conspiracy theorist
Rudy Reichstadt tracks dangerous false reports from Paris. His work is a “martial arts,” he says. You can hardly win.
“Conspiracy Watch” -Gründer Rudy Reichstadt. zvg
Rudy Reichstadt sits in his sparse Paris office, which consists of two tables and a mountain of empty cardboard boxes. You don’t want to read the exact address in the newspaper. He has received aggressive visits from right-wing extremists in the past. “With our work we cause crazy hostility,” says the 39-year-old very naturally.
The Frenchman has engaged in the fight against conspiracy theories with his organization “Conspiracy Watch” (“Observatory of Conspiracy Theories”). He sees his mission in providing information on his own home page to intervene in discussions of all kinds of dangerous plot allegations. With a historian and two freelancers, Reichstadt follows the scene every day. The political scientist no longer sees his mission as mere education, but as an authentic “martial arts”.
Funded by a Jewish memorial foundation
Reichstadt began his tracking work after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when numerous conspiracy theories related to the terrorist attacks were born. Six years later she dedicated herself to her fight full time and founded “Conspiracy Watch”.
On his website, he tirelessly shows how theories are spread. “We want to make it clear that these theories often come from autocratic regimes and are uncritically propagated by conspiracy theorists,” Reichstadt explains. The website www.conspiracywatch.info registers up to 200,000 clicks each month.
Not surprisingly, some now describe him and his team as part of a worldwide conspiracy. The founder of “Conspiracy Watch” laughs:
The latter also because its observatory is co-financed by the Paris Shoa Memorial Foundation. This is not surprising: Jews suffer the most from the “complosphère,” as the conspiracy scene in France is called.
From his Paris office, Rudy Reichstadt is increasingly looking at neighboring Germany and the crown protests there. In the ranks of protesters who want to hold their next rally in Konstanz on October 4, he sees “growing hysteria” from conspiracy theorists.
Germans are more susceptible than French
There are two reasons why Germany is more affected by this phenomenon than France: On the one hand, the French are more affected by the pandemic, so they are more likely to accept the need for sanitary measures. Furthermore, the yellow vests in France had anticipated many conspiracy theses as early as 2019.
But France is not immune from conspiracy theorists either. Roughly one in four French people believe the corresponding theories, according to a survey by the Paris Ifop Institute. When Notre Dame Cathedral burned down in Paris in April 2019, the first false reports emerged during the fire. Six months later, a right-wing extremist attacked the Bayonne mosque “to avenge Notre-Dame,” as he put it. He had read somewhere that the Muslims had burned down the cathedral.
The catalyst for these false reports is becoming increasingly common on social media. They also provide conspiracy theorists with an attractive platform. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that nine percent of the French believe that the earth is flat. “There is a lot of work to be done,” Reichstadt sighs. “Sisyphean’s job.”
