This Picture of Protestors On Board Police Van in France Is From a Movie

We found that the visual is from a French film named Athena, which was released in 2022.

Fact-Check | The picture is from a French movie and does not show a real incident.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An image showing several people inside a police van is going viral on the internet with users linking it to the recent violence that has broken out in France.

While one person can be seen with a gun in the picture, another can be seen holding the national flag of France on the top of the vehicle.

Who shared it?: Media outlet One India, among others, shared the picture on their website.

(Swipe right to view all claims.)

An archive of the post can be found here.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

The context: Protests broke out in different areas of the country after a 17-year-old boy was shot dead by the police on 27 June. The incident sparked a row on police violence and racism towards marginalised communities. You can read our story here.

What is the truth?: This image is from a French movie called Athena, which was released in 2022.

What led us to the truth?: A similar Google Lens search led us to a similar image uploaded on a Twitter handle named 'Vulture'.

• The image was uploaded on a thread that ranked stunts from different action films.

• The caption mentioned that the picture is from the opening sequence of the film Athena.

You can see the archive of the tweet here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

• Taking this forward, we performed a keyword search on YouTube and came across the entire opening sequence of the film uploaded on an unverified channel called 'tibsogameTV'.

• It was uploaded on 25 September 2022, and at around the 1:26 mark of the video, one can find similar visuals.

• We compared a visual from the YouTube clip to the viral image and found that both are the same and part of the film, Athena.

We could conclude that both the images are from the French film.

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

About the film: Athena is a French action drama released in 2022. It was directed by Romain Gavras and features actors such as Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, and Anthony Bajon.

• A part of the car opening scene can also be seen in the trailer below.

Conclusion: It is clear that a visual from a French film is being shared with users falsely linking it to the recent protests and violence that has broken out in France.

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