French newspaper Le Monde's Twitter account suffers hacking attack

French newspaper Le Monde's Twitter account has been hacked by a group called the Syrian Electronic Army.

"Hackers which belong to the Syrian Electronic Army attempted to take control of the Twitter account of Monde.fr and managed to infiltrate our publishing tool before launching a denial of service," the newspaper said on its website.

It later said in a tweet it had recovered, and apologised for the fraudulent posts on its behalf.

Signs of hacking came after 7:00 pm ET, as the logo of the Syrian Electronic Army was seen in a tweet sent from the official Le Monde account.

The hackers also posted the message "the Syrian Electronic Army was here" in French, followed by the hashtags #SEA and #Syria.

The group posted a few more tweets including one reading "Je ne suis pas Charlie" that means 'I'm not Charlie'. The message comes in negative reference to the popular "Je Suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) hashtag.

Nevertheless, the attack was short-lived, as the account was suspended by Twitter just minutes after the initial posts.

The incident comes after the terrorist attacks on French magazine Charlie Hebdo. French media have recently been featuring debates regarding the future of the Jewish and Muslim communities in the country.

In November, the Twitter accounts of a number of British and North American media firms were allegedly hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The affected media organisations included the Daily Telegraph, the Independent, the Evening Standard, the Los Angeles Times and CNN.