France Riots: Old And Unrelated Visuals Of Police Brutality Viral As Recent

By Anmol Alphonso

A set of several old and unrelated videos of French police using excessive force and beating up protesters including women is being shared as a police crackdown during the recent riots in the country.

Widespread riots broke out in France last week after a 17-year-old boy of Algerian heritage was shot dead by a police officer at a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on June 27, 2023.

The video which is 55 seconds long, consists of nine video clips, many showing French police using excessive force against women protesters or dragging protesters in the street.

The viral video was tweeted by the Twitter account Megh Updates (@MeghUpdates) with the caption, "French Police in action mode after almost a week of rioting"

BOOM has previously debunked misinformation tweeted by the same handle.

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The same video is being shared the same claim on Twitter in Hindi. The caption of the video when translated reads, "After the fierce riots that lasted for about one and a half week, now the French police is in action mode!! On the basis of video footage and intelligence agency, she is going door to door arresting the "rioters" and preparing to deport them to their country..."

(In Hindi - करीब डेढ़ हफ्ते तक चले भयंकर दंगे के बाद अब फ्रेंच पुलिस एक्शन मोड में आ गया है !! विडियो फुटेज व खुफिया एजेंसी के आधार पर, घर घर जाकर "दंगाइयों" को दबोच रही है और उन्हें अपने देश डिपोर्ट करने की तैयारी कर रही है...)

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Also Read:Video From Philippines Falsely Shared As Rioters Burning Library In France

FACT-CHECK

BOOM found that all the visuals of French police using excessive force on protesters in the viral video are old and date back prior to at least April 2023 long before the recent riots last week in the country.

We found that the viral video had nine clips that had different visuals combined into a single video. On breaking the video into key-frames and using Google Images, we found that the search results showed that all the visuals in the viral video are old and not from the recent unrest in France.

We found that the same video was tweeted by the Twitter handle @FranceRsistanc1 on April 17, 2023. This tweet predates the recent riots in France.