Old, Unrelated Videos From Protests Falsely Linked to France's Election Results

These videos predates the election results in France.

Fact-Check: Old and unrelated visuals of protests from France have been falsely linked to elections results.

(Photo: The Quint)

A set of two videos are going viral on social media to claim that they are recent clips from protests happening around in France.

The claim, along with the video, insinuates that France will now turn into an "Islamic" state.

• This comes after Sunday, 7 July, when a coalition of the left and center parties came together to win France’s snap elections and, according to polling projections.

• The surprise projections pushed President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance in second and ahead of the far-right.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

What's the truth?: These videos are old and unrelated to the recent elections results.

• The first video, from 2019, shows Algerians protesting against former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was set to secure a fifth term.

• Another video shows a pro-Palestine protesting in France on 1 June, predating the election results.

How did we find out the truth?: We started with reverse image searching some of the keyframes of the videos on Google and found older versions of the video.

VIDEO 1: We noticed the flags people held looked similar to the Algerian national flag.

A comparison clearly shows that people were holding Algerian flags.

(Source: Wikipedia/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

• Taking this as a hint, we performed a keyword search in English and came across a report published on France24 on 10 March 2019.

• It was headlined, "Thousands join Algeria protests in Paris and other French cities."

• The report mentioned that thousands of people gathered at the Republique Square in Paris to demonstrate against Bouteflika’s decision to seek a fifth term in office.

• The protests saw people and students of Algerian origin coming out on the streets.

The report carried visuals from the protests.

(Source: France24/Screenshot)

• We found a video uploaded on the official YouTube channel of AP Archive.

• The video was uploaded on 15 March 2019 titled, "Thousands rally in Paris against Algeria president."

• It showed visuals of people protesting and raising slogans against Bouteflika at the Place de la Republique.

A Vox report said that Algerians were protesting against the ailing President at that time, who was reportedly seeking a fifth term in office.

VIDEO 2:

By reverse image searching, we found an old X (formerly Twitter) post which was shared on 1 June, which predates the election elections that came out on 7 July.

• We found the location on Google Maps to be Bellecour Square in Lyon, France.

• Taking a hint, we used the location to search relevant keywords on Google and found several reports about the recent protests.

• A report shared by Bfmtv Lyon and Lyon Capitale stated that several people gathered at Place Bellecour in Lyon on 1 June to support Palestine and call for a ceasefire.

Conclusion: Old and unrelated visuals of protests from France have been falsely linked to elections results.

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