Using specialist software, the consultancy studied 2.3m posts from 468,000 accounts in Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. From that dataset, it identified 50,000 as accounts that spread disinformation.

In France, it found that of the more than 127,000 posts in its dataset mentioning Éric Zemmour, the founder of the far-right political party Reconquête, 20% had come from disinformation accounts.

In Germany, 10% of posts about Alternative für Deutschland in their dataset came from the disinformation accounts. The “actual percentage” was likely to be higher in both countries, the consultancy said.

Many were created after 1 January this year and amassed a large number of followers very quickly. Nearly all the accounts followed by the researchers followed back – another red flag for coordinated activity.