Bonus Eventus pseudo-scandal: Le Monde's “major investigation” fizzles out
The Doubt Factory Created by Le Monde's Stéphane Foucart
Editor’s Introduction: What follows is a translation of an article by André Heitz based on an assessment of the campaign activism of Le Monde’s Stéphane Foucart (who has seemingly abandoned the profession of journalism). It is part of the continuing analysis of the Lighthouse Report exposé of Bonus Eventus. Certain actors in the mainstream media are serving the activist/tort law firm strategy of attacking paraquat and atrazine by fabricating conclusions against a small news monitoring site, attempting to portray them as an evil representative of some chemical industry cabal. I picked up a line from André’s conclusion (“Foucart’s Doubt Factory“), weaving it through the different sections. Doubt has always been Foucart’s product.
Those outside of France have likely never heard of the name: Stéphane Foucart. He is an activist who uses his position in Le Monde to advance his anti-pesticide agenda, bully opponents and spread misinformation with evident pleasure. His foray into the Lighthouse Reports Bonus Eventus campaign shows his efforts to extend his audience (perhaps frustrated by how little known he is outside of France). But Foucart’s forced arguments are so ridiculous as to be worthy of the satire, deftly delivered by one of his oldest foes. That Foucart continues to push this “nothing burger” should raise larger questions about the forces acting behind him.
The French daily Le Monde is one of the media partners of a concerted campaign against a small public relations company, v-Fluence. The last of its three-episode report was supposed to be the grand finale of the fireworks. Instead, it was a fizzle, a collage of tall tales.
In short, v-Fluence is being chastized for doing what it was created to do: media monitoring, analysis and profiles of influential players in the chemical and genetic agri-supply sectors. And the small consultancy was even attacked for what it has not done at the European Union level by way of undue interference in EU Green Deal policies. If you read Foucart’s article carefully – with the blinders taken off – Le Monde just demonstrated Foucart’s Doubt Factory in action!
Insinuations and Manipulations in Episodes 1 and 2
Foucart’s first two installments – “Investigation reveals mass profiling of 'opponents' of the agrochemical industry” and “Diving into the black box of global pesticide propaganda” – were by and large along the lines of the Lighthouse Reports “revelations.” They were translated into English, no doubt to ease the breeding of offsprings... such as the latest letter-writing outbursts from Corporate Europe Observatory and friends.
The “agrochemical industry” is actually a small communications company offering media monitoring services, analyses and profiles of influential players in the chemical and genetic agri-supply sectors (essentially pesticides and, in a broader sense, GMOs).
Strategy 1: Create an Evil Enemy
But v-Fluence was created and is run by Jay Byrne, who Le Monde selectively identifies as a former communications director at Monsanto. This is enough to give it a sulphurous aura and to drag the entire economic sector into the story.
The “dive” landed more like a belly flop; the “black box”, documentation delivered to the company's customers and free subscribers (including the author of this piece); and the “global propaganda”, said documentation, primarily media monitoring, the highlights of which are included in a newsletter, “Bonus Eventus.”
v-Fluence can – perhaps – be criticized for being intrusive in its profiles of certain players in the ecosystem. The great investigation champion Stéphane Foucart noted in particular the reference to links with a possibly sectarian movement in the case of Gilles-Éric Séralini, the author of an infamous study on rats, glyphosate and glyphosate-tolerant corn. Fact is, however, this information features prominently in his Wikipedia entry.
Jay Byrne, head of v-Fluence, forcefully claims that all the information in his profiles is public. But Foucart’s Doubt Factory was pumping out stories.
The author of Le Monde's trilogy did not hesitate to do far worse than Jay Byrne has been accused of doing to four French authors of articles listed in Bonus Eventus with a quality mark (including the author of this piece)... He did so without any relevant journalistic reason, in a daily newspaper with a national audience. Foucart’s name, for example, was associated with a defamation case I lost in a French court (and did not appeal against), without any further information (I take this loss as a wound earned on the battlefield, and the case was so serious (irony) that my opponent did not find it fit to request my damning analysis of his documentary to be taken down).
A European scandal? Yes, but not the one they want us to believe
The concerted assault by a motley team of conspirators – a predatory US law firm eager to line their pockets, an activist pretending to be a journalist, a fundraising foundation, a stichting (Dutch foundation) claiming to be engaged in collaborative journalism – was supposed to include national examples of v-Fluence's malfeasance provided by press card holders of the media with which the aforementioned team were in league.
But there was nothing in respect of France for Le Monde and Stéphane Foucart. So they had to fall back on the European Union: “How Trump's administration tried to torpedo the EU Green Deal using influence and misinformation campaigns” is the title of the third installment, from September 29, 2024.
Strategy 2: Create Impression of Government Collusion
So as the Lighthouse Reports globalization strategy missed in France, the Foucart Doubt Factory inserted Brussels instead (that’s in France … right?). The lead to the article states:
“Investigation / Bonus Eventus Files (3/3). In 2020, as Europe announced an ambitious policy to make its agriculture more sustainable, the Trump administration decided to go on the attack. In its crusade, it recruited the influence firm v-Fluence founded by a former Monsanto executive.”
Oh, the ugly alleged aggression!
In reality, the US authorities were legitimately concerned about the European proposals or projects. Oh, not even from the point of view of their national interests, but rather of the effects on the global food situation.
In November 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ARS-USDA) published a highly acclaimed report entitled “Economic and Food Security Impacts of Agricultural Input Reduction Under the European Union Green Deal’s Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies” (this report has had the honor of being translated into French).
Others have also published analyses, reaching similar worrying conclusions, including the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. Please, read it again: the European Commission's own research agency!
Was the US worried about the prospect of reduced export opportunities?
The description of some kind of vast conspiracy by the US or the evil Donald Trump (at the time of the alleged events, President of the United States and therefore, today, a very useful scarecrow) is therefore laughable. Foucart writes:
“This is a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of a war of influence. The war waged by the US against countries wishing to strengthen their environmental regulations whenever they are likely to harm the export power of their agriculture – to the point of using the same methods as polluting industries and even the same public relations firms. Under former president Donald Trump, the US administration called on such firms to torpedo the "Farm to Fork" (F2F) strategy, designed to "green" European agriculture.
Defending pesticides and genetically modified organisms at all costs, hindering any strict regulation of their use, denigrating organic farming and undoing Europe's agro-ecological ambitions ... similar operations have been conducted in Africa and Asia to promote the adoption of transgenic crops and the unfettered use of synthetic agricultural inputs.”
If the US were cynically considering only their own interests, they could only rejoice at the fact that the European Union was proposing to cut down its production capacities!
As for the rest... In the case of GMOs, for example, it has been “game over” for a long time since for GMO cultivation in Europe ... but not for their importation. Who benefits? Most notably... the United States.
Strategy 3: Highlight a webinar by a European Parliament group … organized from Washington?
Foucart’s Doubt Factory then produces a long story about an ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament) webinar that took place on July 29, 2020.
The webinar was allegedly “organized” by the White House Writers Group (WHWG). The proof?
“Presented as an initiative of the group of MEPs, the event was organized by WHWG, which also works for the US administration. In a memo, an official from the US Department of Agriculture explains: 'Although not directly involved in this event, WHWG acts as an intermediary between ECR and USDA by coordinating this meeting'.” [Our emphasis]
We're back to the level of the craziest set-ups we had seen in Foucart’s earlier “Monsanto Papers” saga in support of extravagant theories built out of almost nothing.
Please read these lines carefully: WHWG would have organized an event... by being, in short, a mere intermediary (allegedly, according to an USDA internal “memo”). Foucart’s Doubt Factory Level 1.
Let's just be logical: a US company would organize a Brussels-focused webinar from Washington, on top of it securing the participation of Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski? A webinar that clearly is hosted by the ECR? This is a joke!
But here's what's important: v-Fluence is nowhere to be found in this improbable scenario! Foucart nevertheless managed to link the event to the services of v-Fluence... Foucart Doubt Factory Level 2.
We have to content ourselves with Foucart’s general allegation of collusion, without proof, for the great strategy of domination, of imposing the American way on Europeans, of the “war of influence” mentioned above:
“Obtained by investigative media outlet Lighthouse Reports and shared with Le Monde and other international media, internal documents from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that the US administration used two communications and reputation management firms to achieve this. The first is the White House Writers Group (WHWG), which is based in Washington. The second, v-Fluence, is a small company of around 20 employees founded in 2001 and headed by Jay Byrne, former head of communications at Monsanto. [...]”
The U.S. administration used outside companies? What a scandal!
So … contract or no contract?
Although we must also address other aspects of this Le Monde piece, which is meandering and threadbare as is often the case, in keeping with the Foucart Doubt Factory techniques of journalism of influence and insinuation, staying on the webinar story, we must ask: Was there a contract between the USDA and v-Fluence?
First of all, the question is quite trivial or nonsensical. Where is, or where would be the problem? But it illustrates Foucart’s use of opinion manipulation in the media – with possible metastasis into US legal proceedings.
The webinar was a great success, according to Ted McKinney, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Commerce, and “a memo sent to USDA executives several months later [by] the two PR firms” [our emphasis].
It's probably a good strategy for a communications agency to claim success by overemphasizing the results – but the reality is that the webinar went largely unnoticed outside the Brussels microcosm, as evidenced by the fact that there was no outraged article in Le Monde at the time about the intolerable questioning of the formidable virtues (irony) of the European Union's projects. But it's quite another thing to suggest, four years on and to an uninformed readership, that the webinar raised awareness and triggered the grumbling and opposition that ultimately brought down the EU “biodiversity” project.
Here, the question is about “the two PR firms” and their alleged role. Really? A note – perhaps a joint one – for a rather innocuous announcement should be the undisputable proof? Anything is possible in Foucart Doubt Factory when you reach Level 3!
This is followed by a reference to a statement by WHWG 's Executive Director, who... claims full credit on behalf of his group. In short, v-Fluence is out of the picture.
This, too, is another illustration of the art of a particular journalism: take the paragraph in question out of context and you would say, “No big deal!”. But according to the paragraph in its context, WHWG and v-Fluence appear to be involved in a sulphurous operation – and as a reminder, v-Fluence was not involved in the webinar, unless there is indisputable proof to the contrary.
The Foucart maneuver continues. On November 18, 2020, a five-year contract was signed between the USDA and... WHWG. But, bingo, v-Fluence is put back into the picture as “...part of the operations were subcontracted to v-Fluence” [our emphasis].
And the maneuvering continues: “White House Writers Group and v-Fluence undertake...” “The v-Fluence company also guarantees the US administration access to its private “Bonus Eventus” database...” [id.].
Let's stop here: what is v-Fluence 's core business? Selling its information services, including “Bonus Eventus”!
But write “private database ‘Bonus Eventus’”, add a nightmarish description of the database, and you've aroused the indignation of the average Le Monde reader...
The Doubt Factory and Innuendo Journalism
However, in the end, after having had to point out that this contract with WHWG didn't really come to fruition, Le Monde had to concede for v-Fluence:
“As for Jay Byrne, he denies the existence of a contract between his company and the USDA.” [Our emphasis]
This is another illustration of Foucart’s Doubt Factory and insinuation journalism. The denial is dispatched in a single sentence, … and personalized. The reader is invited to believe Jay Byrne's word – or rather, to doubt it.
In fact, Jay Byrne was much more categorical in a detailed response to Lighthouse Reports on September 24, 2024, before their allegations were published:
“To reiterate.
• We don’t work for or have any past or current contracts with USAID or USDA. Neither has any role in nor directs our work in any manner.
• We do not engage in lobbying. We have agreements to provide our newsletters and related communications support limited to analysis, counsel on best practices, and occasional communication trainings with several international governmental organizations working in agriculture. Other clients include academic institutions, professional associations, trade groups and for-profit companies. None of these organizations requests anything beyond our monitoring, research services, and analysis. There is no unethical, illegal, or otherwise inappropriate outreach, lobbying or related activities by our organization of any kind.”
Lighthouse Reports also had to concede. But...
“In France, Le Monde reveals how v-Fluence won a contract with another PR firm aimed at undermining the EU's “farm to fork” policy. The work, worth $4.9 million, was due to start in 2020, but public spending records suggest it was suspended when President Biden was elected.” [Our emphasis]
This is patently, outrageously, and no doubt willfully false.
Why did they only target v-Fluence?
The link in one of the quotations above refers to the list of documents put online by activist Carey Gillam of the Environmental Working Group on its The New Lede site. It's unusable, unless you explore all or a substantial part of the documents, some of which are very voluminous.
But the big question is: Why wasn't the WHWG (also) implicated in a “Bonus Event Files investigation”?
It's because – unless there's evidence to the contrary – the company hasn't collaborated with Syngenta, the company whose accounts a predatory law firm wants to invade with civil liability claims alleging that paraquat caused Parkinson's disease (note: paraquat is older than glyphosate and has therefore been in the public domain for ages, and other, less wealthy, paraquat producers have not been targeted by legal actions).
Here again, we're almost in the “Monsanto Papers” scenario.
The idea is to portray Syngenta as an “evil company”, one that was malicious, greedy and indifferent to the health of its customers, that knew its product was harmful to health but hid it. Having (allegedly) contributed to Syngenta 's communication and its alleged concealment, v-Fluence has been dragged into the proceedings and must therefore also publicly appear as an “evil company”.
As with the “Monsanto Papers”, the media flurry to which Le Monde will have contributed should serve to put juries in US courts into the “right” mood.
And if, in addition, it would be wonderful if Foucart could put an end to an efficient information system on the maneuvers of anti-GMO and anti-pesticide circles and the positive and less positive developments around the world... and in France on the excellent papers published by André Heitz, Jean-Paul Oury, Gil Rivière-Wekstein, Philippe Stoop...
This is an English translation of an article published on the French blogsite: “Agriculture, alimentation, santé publique... soyons rationnels”. The article was written by the editor, André Heitz, under his nom de plume: Wackes Seppi. André is a retired agronomist and a former international civil servant for the United Nations system. For those incapable of thinking on the basis of information: he is not working for any chemical or pesticide companies.
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