No, JD Vance did not say Romania is a French colony

A social media post shared by far-right Romanian MEP Diana Șoșoacă implies that United States Vice President JD Vance called on Romanians to "free themselves from French rule through a revolution".

The post is accompanied by a screenshot of a news article, seemingly from reputable news platform, Europa Liberă—the Romanian branch of Radio Free Europe.

"Senator JD Vance: We cannot get involved in the Romanian state. Romania was a democratic country! It is no longer! Only the people can do justice, no one else! You are a French colony!" the headline reads.

Șoșoacă posted a message accompanying the post, stating that "the Americans have given the green light," and that "only a revolution can save what once was Romania".

However, neither Vance nor any other US public official suggested in any statement that Romania is a "French colony", or that Romanians should free themselves through a revolution.

Fake news article

There are several indications that the news article featured in Șoșoacă's post is not what it claims to be.

Firstly, the article in the post poorly imitates the Europa Liberă website. The font and style, for one, are completely different.

Meanwhile, it refers to Vance as a senator and not as the US vice president, which is, in fact, his function.

An online search for such a statement from Vance, both in English and Romanian, did not yield any results from reputable sources. The only result the search yielded was a YouTube video featuring Diana Șoșoacă telling a similar story to the one in her Facebook post.

Here, she refers to a TikTok video supposedly shared by Vance in which he made these "colony" claims. However, no such video could be found on his profile.

Most importantly, the director of Europa Liberă confirmed to Euroverify that the story and the quotes attributed to JD Vance are false. "Yes, we are familiar with the topic, to say the least. It is definitely fake news," Elena Tănase said.

Europe Liberă did not publish the article featured in Șoșoacă's Facebook post.

In response to a request for comment from Euroverify regarding the fake news she shared, Șoșoacă accused Euronews of being "subservient to a corrupt, murderous, and deceitful system".

She added: "I post what I want because, unlike you, I am a free person", and concluded with "keep your hands off Romania".

Șoșoacă has become notorious for spreading disinformation, including pro-Russian rhetoric.

When asked for comment regarding Șoșoacă's spreading of fake news, the European Parliament Press Services told Euroverify that the EP does not comment on individual posts by MEPs, but that it "takes all concerns regarding the conduct of its Members seriously."

Criticism in Munich Security Conference speech

Tănase did refer to the statement Vance made about Romania and its cancelled 2024 presidential elections during his speech at the Munich Security Conference in February this year.

He claimed that Romania cancelled the first round of November 2024 presidential elections based on what he called "shaky suspicions of an intelligence service", and "enormous pressure from neighbours on the continent".

The Romanian Constitutional Court decided to annul the results of the presidential elections in December 2024 over allegations of Russian interference in the surprise victory by the far-right nationalist candidate, Călin Georgescu.

The court ordered a new election, which took place in May 2025. Centrist and mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, was elected president.

"I understand that the argument was that Russian disinformation affected the outcome of the election, but I ask my European friends to have a little perspective," Vance said in February.

"You may think it's bad for Russia to buy ads on social media to influence your elections. We believe that. You can condemn it on the global stage as well. But if your democracy can be destroyed by a few hundred thousand dollars in advertisements from a foreign power, then it was not a very strong democracy," he said.

Still, Vance did not mention France's possible role as a coloniser, either in Romania or in any other country, in this speech or in any subsequent speech.

Romanian ties to France

Romanian MEP Șoșoacă also stated in her social media post that the Romanian state was abolished on 5 October 2024.

While she did not explain what this referred to, it is possible that, in the context of false claims she makes about Romania being a French colony, this could be in reference to the speech made by former Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, at the 19th edition of the Francophonie Summit on that date.

La Francophonie is an institution dedicated to promoting the French language and political, educational, economic and cultural cooperation among the 93 member countries of the Organisation internationale of la Francophonie (OIF), which includes Romania.

During this speech, Iohannis affirmed Romania's commitment to La Francophonie. However, merely being a member state of the OIF does not automatically make a country or territory "francophone", or a French colony.

While there are ties between French colonialism and La Francophonie—Senegal is a member of OIF and was a French colony, for example—there are countries such as Romania that are included because the French language historically had a significant cultural influence in the country. It is now the second foreign language taught at school after English.

Cloning news organisations

This is just one example of a fake news report for which a clone of sorts is made of an established news website to spread fake news, in this case, to promote anti-Western discourse and amplify social tensions.

The same tactic is used to copy television stations. For example, false videos have been made in the style of Euronews.

In the midst of the presidential election campaign in May 2025, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania (ANCOM) put out a warning regarding a network of Doppelganger sites.

"This network of cloned sites mimics the image of the official internet pages of some important public institutions, television and news agencies, used to promote misleading content on social, political, economic or health topics to mislead the population and negatively influence its perception," its statement read.

Tănase told Euroverify that more generally, the Romanian online environment is being flooded with pro-Russian, anti-Western attacks. She added that, since 2024, many of these attacks have been focused against France and President Emmanuel Macron.

This increase can be linked to the fact that Moscow perceives France as its main adversary in Europe. This was confirmed by the head of the French army, General Thierry Burkhard, in July 2025.

He said this was largely due to French support for Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion. "It was [Vladimir] Putin who said this," the general added.