Shushan Stepanyan, #CivilNetСheck
On May 30, information circulated on Armenian social media and news outlets claiming that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had purchased a luxurious €3.1 million villa in Marseille, France.
The source of the information was the “French” website “Info du Jour.”
According to the article, “The 300 m² villa, purchased in May 2025, is located in the Château Gombert district of Marseille. It features four bedrooms, a swimming pool, a rooftop terrace, and a garage for three cars.”
#CivilNetCheck investigated the claim and located the property. Through our partners, we obtained official documents from the French Cadastre.
What is known about the villa and who owns it?
The original source website had published a photo of the villa. Through reverse image search, we discovered that the photos were taken from real estate listing websites.
The villa is located at 108 Chemin Des Xaviers, Marseille (coordinates: 43.36244, 5.44848).
Satellite view of the actual property location
Official records show it was last sold in May 2023 for €1.47 million, not the €3.1 million claimed in the fake story.
The property belongs to NESS, a French real estate rental company registered at 100 Chemin Des Xaviers, Marseille. The company’s shareholders are Sandra Setbon (85%), Ernest Setbon (10%), and retail company Shy’v (5%). There is no connection to Armenian officials.
There is no evidence that the villa has been sold recently.
Stolen Photos, Fake Authors
Studying the article’s source, a website called “Info du Jour” (website address: infofrancaisedujour.fr), we found that it began publishing articles on May 25 of this year. The article about Pashinyan’s private residence was published days later, on May 29.
It is noteworthy that there are no new publications on the website after May 29. The website’s name was presumably meant to mirror a real French news outlet with the same name – Info du jour (website address: infodujour.fr)- to inspire trust.
The website states that the author of the article is Josiane Bernier, and her photo is also attached. However the source of the photo shows it is not of Josiane Bernier, but blogger Catherine Perreault, who mainly writes about cinema and fashion.”
The photos of the other “authors” on the website were also taken from the internet. For example, the photo attributed to an author named Antoine Lefebvre actually shows French radio journalist Gabriel Attal. Similarly, the photo used for the author named “Jocelyn Proulx” depicts French journalist Diane de Vignemont.
Therefore, the villa attributed to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan does not belong to him and the story is baseless. It was spread through a fake news website that had been active for only a few days, whose “authors” used fictitious names and whose photos were stolen from the internet.
Perhaps one of many examples of Russian and Turkish (includes Azeris) attempts to thwart the legitimate Armenian government of the people. Prime Minister Pashinian may not be a perfect leader, but in absence of a truly unifying and heroic leader, he is leading the nation slowly but surely towards a freedom from the treacherous Russia (or ex-Soviet Russia).
Incidentally, to begin the process of de-Russification of the country, let’s replace the Russian chosen ‘y’ from our last names and replace it with an ‘i ’ which is much more Armenian.