UPDATED 10:16 p.m. ET: Le Monde has now apparently recovered its Twitter account, tweeting, "After hacking into our account, our teams have now taken the hand. We apologize for any fraudulent posts on our behalf," according to a Google translation.
Après le piratage de notre compte, nos équipes ont désormais repris la main. Nos excuses pour les messages frauduleux postés en notre nom.— Le Monde (@lemondefr) January 21, 2015
The main Twitter account for leading French newspaper Le Monde was hacked on Tuesday night by the Syrian Electronic Army.
Initial signs of trouble began showing up sometime after 7 p.m. ET, with the account sending a Twitter message displaying the now familiar Syrian Electronic Army logo seen in recent months during other Twitter hack attacks, including those on The Daily Telegraph, The Los Angeles Times and CNN.
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Along with the SEA logo, the hackers posted the message "the Syrian Electronic Army was here" in French, followed by the hashtags #SEA and #Syria. The group then retweeted a BBC News tweet reporting on the incident.
However, unlike previous Twitter attacks carried out by the group, this one was very short-lived. Just minutes after the first posts, the account was suspended, leaving both the hackers and Le Monde without access.
This latest SEA hack is particularly significant given recent events in France centered around the terrorist attacks on the magazine Charlie Hebdo and the subsequent debate regarding the future of the Jewish and Muslim communities in the country.
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As of this writing, the account (@LemondeFR) remains suspended and the newspaper has yet to issue a statement on any of its other Twitter accounts regarding the incident.