• 20 Minutes 

    publishes a three-part survey on the influence of followers of the QAnon theory in France.

    A true conspiratorial sponge, this theory promotes the idea that the United States and the world are controlled by occult powers that only Donald Trump is able to counter.

  • With 50 to 70,000 spectators for each of its lives, the French-speaking channel of DéQodeurs is one of the most influential on the Internet.

  • Its leader and creator, Léonard Sojli, confides to 

    20 Minutes

     the motivations of his “questioning” approach, between religiosity and quest for meaning.

“France is today shaken to its foundations by the coalition of its enemies: terrorists, conspirators, separatists, communitarians. This sentence, pronounced by Jean Castex during his general policy speech, on July 15, 2020 to the National Assembly, enraged Léonard Sojli. "But who do they think they are? It is they, the real separatists, to treat in this way citizens who are only asking the right questions, the questions that disturb, those to which they do not want to answer. Almost eight months later, the words of the Prime Minister are regularly brandished by Sojli during his live interventions, as if being indirectly called “an enemy of the Republic” by the head of government was ultimately proof of the good. based on its “questioning” approach.

At 37, he is the administrator of DéQodeurs, one of the most influential conspiratorial sites of the QAnon movement in France. A conspiracy theory imported from the United States which claims that former US President Donald Trump would fight the "deep state", a pedophile or even Satanist cabal of which the elites of our world would be part and which would aim to establish a new world order.

Smiling, bald head and three-day-old beard, Sojli chooses his words carefully and rolls the "Rs" lightly. This hippie-looking Albanian, who lives between France and Switzerland, devotes himself to his website from “Monday to Sunday, 10 am to 2 am”, and lives on 3,000 euros a month, “sometimes more”, that his community pays him thanks to the Tipee donation platform. Thanks to the help of a team of translators and Rudy and Pepito, former spectators who became co-hosts of the lives he broadcasts twice a week, he comments on the news and guides his followers - "the digital soldiers From the name of his Telegram channel, where about 12,000 people follow him diligently - in this "information war" he is waging against "the elites who control us." It was from his home in Orléans that he confided in 

20 minutes

.

Ten years of conspiracy

Léonard Sojli is not at his first attempt with the French complosphere.

He created the Jaiundoute.com site in 2011, on which he deals with various subjects, and already conspirators, such as the involvement of the United States in the attack of September 11, 2001. “We were already talking of a kind of entity which is above the state and which controls those for whom one votes, he notes.

We did not yet call it the “deep state”, but we realized that something obscure was going on in secret ”.

At the same time, he co-founded “Thinkerview”, a YouTube channel that offers “interviews and alternative perspectives in a world of formatted information”, according to his own description. Many more or less controversial personalities follow one another. From the leader of the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon to the journalist Laurent Obertone, who came to defend his thesis of the great replacement, a theory according to which the French of pure stock would be threatened with extinction. The riverside interviews, not cut, "imply that we are not governed by those who we think", judge Rudy Reischstadt, founder of the Observatory of online conspiracy,

Conspiracy Watch

, for whom this type of channels tends to trivialize conspiracy speeches.

“Thanks to Thinkerview, I was able to talk to several fund managers and economists.

I can say that on these subjects, my vision is more complete than many average French people ”, boasts Léonard Sojli.

The adventure

Thinkerview

ends in 2015, the Jaiundoute.com platform will live

until the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. “There I resigned myself.

Seeing this guy from the Rothschild bank get elected was proof for us that it wasn't the people who voted.

We had done our research and we had seen more than worrying things, electoral fraud, double ballot papers, entire towns where votes were disappearing, ”says Sojli, sure of himself despite the denials of the press.

He abandoned his online activities, devoted himself to music production, and worked a time for a developing search engine at the time.

Christic revelation

It is in March 2020 that the flame is reborn, while France confines itself to limit the spread of Covid-19, Leonardo discovers the word of "Q". The instigator of the QAnon movement is an anonymous who claims to be a high-ranking officer of the American army and who invites his followers to do their own research to denounce the gigantic plot and fight the evil entity that would represent the "deep state" .

“I became bulimic of his messages, he said the same things as we did in the past, he spoke of an obscure power which works above state power, central banks, corrupt institutions. I tried to contradict him, but I couldn't. He then remembers a mood note from Jacques Attali dating from 2009, when the world was facing the H1NI flu epidemic. The columnist evoked the benefits of the establishment of a "world government" to deal with the next more violent epidemics. “There, it clicked, I told myself that the Covid-19 is a 'plandemic' [a planned pandemic]. The virus exists, but the government is amplifying its dangerousness to scare us. "

Thanks to Q, Leonardo discovers religion.

“I had a revelation, and I became a Christian.

Q, thanks to his references to Christianity - which must represent 20% of his posts - put me on the path to the Bible, ”he confides.

Jaiundoute.com becomes Dissept.com, in reference to the 17th letter of the alphabet - the Q, obviously - and to the number 7, which symbolizes perfection in Christianity.

It is from this platform that Léonard begins to share the word of Q. The DéQodeurs will finally take the place of Dissept.

"To troll Les Décodeurs, the fact-checking service of the

World,

 " he laughs.

In a few months, its platform attracts thousands of visitors. During his lives, broadcast on various platforms, he claims between 50,000 and 70,000 regular spectators, and up to 35,000 at the same time, on the day of Joe Biden's investiture ceremony. “This is the day we went for idiots. "On January 20, he announced that the US military would carry out a coup and once again crown Donald Trump, while possibly assassinating Joe Biden, a creature of the" 

deep state

 ". "Today we know that it was a trap of the deep state, but things are moving," he explains calmly.

Q hasn't posted since December, but he doesn't seem to be concerned about that.

“Q, that was the communication aspect of a military operation.

Now, we are in the action phase, the American army is acting in secret, ”he says, convinced that he has the world's leading military power on his side.

A conspiratorial synthesis

“After that, some of the spectators lost confidence.

But that did not last, and the most convinced remained ”, analyzes Tristan Mendès-France, specialist in conspiracy, and associate lecturer at the University of Paris.

“The DeQoders act as an aggregator of conspiracy theories, they knowingly dismiss the stupidest ones, like the flat Earth or the reptilians, but know that there is a real card to be played around the Covid-19 pandemic, and the French policy in general.

"

If Q remains the cornerstone of their chain, it is true that Les DéQodeurs is a syncretism of several conspiratorial tendencies.

With his community, Léonard Sojli and his associates, Rudy and Pépito, are firing on all cylinders.

A photo of Bruno Le Maire without his mask?

"It is proof that the virus does not scare them and that they want to control us."

Presenter Oprah Winfrey conjures up a small circle revolving around the British royal family?

This is proof that the deep state does exist.

From a praise of Donald Trump, whose record they consider to be excellent, to the effectiveness of chloroquine against Covid-19,

the small group shamelessly takes only one step.

And never forget to tackle the mass media, which are there to "train" the people instead of "inform" them.

Francophone Complosphere

“The Armory”, one of the pages on the DéQodeurs website, is the perfect example of this conspiratorial synthesis. It refers to the Info-VF platform, a video aggregator that brings together the entire French-speaking community, from Quebecer Alexis Cossette-Trudel, to the ultra-responsive web TV, TV Libertés. “I don't have time to look at them all. But these alternative sources will allow the public to do their own research ”, indicates Léonard Sojli.

Tristan Mendès-France points out their contradictions: “They say they are apolitical, but praise the ultranationalist policy of Trump and autocratic regimes like that of Vladimir Poutin.

They claim to be humanists and hermetic to anti-Semitism, but promote theories, such as those which assert that the Rotschilds are false Jews, and which are part of a clear anti-Semitic culture "

"I am neither racist, nor anti-Semitic, nor xenophobic," strongly opposes Léonard Sojli, who categorically refuses to hear that the theories he propagates can take root in anti-Semitism.

He gets away with a formula.

"Remember this: The conspirators of yesterday will be the resistance fighters of tomorrow.

It has always been like that in history, and it will always be like that.

"

There is a certain obsession with Nazism in Les DéQodeurs, who never miss an opportunity to draw a parallel in bad taste.

"The Jews who wore the yellow star, and the citizens who refuse to wear the mask, were and are discriminated against", they compare with his associates in full live.

“They show unfailing relativism, reacts Tristan Mendès-France, accustomed to their protests towards him.

As long as it serves their purpose and they can pass France off as a vile health dictatorship, they do not shy away from any comparison.

"

" Peace and love "

Léonard Sojli says he is constantly attacked by the media, which accuse him of promoting violent and dangerous theories, in reference to the multiple acts (attempted kidnapping, murders, etc.) committed by members of QAnon in the United States.

"A true patriot, someone who follows Q's messages, is a Christian, so he does not advocate violence and goes through legal actions," he opposes.

The assault on Capitol Hill on January 6, in which QAnon members have been proven to have participated?

"It was a trap, have you ever seen an invasion surrounded by cameramen and photographers?"

"

The Mission for information, vigilance and the fight against sectarian aberrations (Miviludes) nonetheless sees a danger in these QAnon communities.

At the end of February, she submitted a report in which she mentioned about fifteen reports relating to the conspiracy movement.

A form of "control" and "indoctrination" was observed in these people.

Within the DeQodeurs chat, on Telegram encrypted messaging, it is not uncommon to see a member come to seek comfort, like Nino: "I lost my friends, and I quarreled with my friend. family, all because of these journalists.

"Or from Brice:" Good evening, DeQodeurs, according to a person in my family you are a sect that has brainwashed me, and we are all conspirators.

What do you think ?

"

A crypto-religion

This influence on her community, Sojli takes it very seriously. "I try to protect them, I reassure them," he replies. People want to kill themselves sometimes, not because of what people say eh, but because of what they see in the media and the health restrictions. They come to our house to seek comfort so I take the time to discuss, I tell them that Papa [God] is with us and that we will make it happen. For Pascale Duval, spokesperson for the National Union of Associations for the Defense of Families and Individuals Victims of Sect, the sectarian excesses within these groups are beyond doubt. She sees Les DéQodeurs as a crypto-religion: “A community is created around a deeply religious personality, who imposes, often without admitting it, his vision of society on his followers,for whom their speech becomes a form of absolute truth. "

"We are not gurus, our objective is to make our community intellectually autonomous," answers Léonard Sojli. What interest for me? I am not riding for gold and I am being attacked by the media everywhere. "Léonard Sojli and the DéQodeurs are archetypes of conspiracy, nevertheless believes Tristan Mendès-France, according to which to see them as evil manipulators would be a mistake:" They are the first to be convinced by the theories they propagate and have absolute certainty of the merits of their approach, the interest is undoubtedly only narcissistic. Leonardo Sojli will continue to pray for his family. Both prophet and martyr of his community, he wants to embody the lighthouse in the midst of the storm. "I will die in seconds in a world without hope, so yes, maybe my engine,it is to rekindle that hope in people. "

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