Old Visuals of Police Beating Protestors Linked To Recent Violence in France

We found that the video is old and unrelated to the recent violence that broke out in France.

A video which shows police personnel brutally dragging and beating up protestors is going viral with users linking it to the recent violence that broke out in France.

What are users claiming?: Social media users shared the video claiming that it shows the police cracking down on protestors in France after a week of rioting.

The video had garnered more than 5,00,000 views at the time of writing this report.

(Archives of more such claims can be found here, here, and here.)

Are these claims true?: No, the video could be traced back to April 2023 and predates the recent violence that broke out in France.

• The video shows allegedly shows different visuals of French police cracking down on people protesting against pension reforms.

How did we find out?: We performed a Google Lens search on the keyframes of the video and came across the same video on Facebook.

• It was posted by one user named 'Le Peuple Uni' and was uploaded on 17 April.

• The caption, when translated to English said, "Police Hate Women: Compilation of police violence committed against women during protests against pension reform."

• We also came across other posts uploaded on Twitter which dated back to April and identified the location as France. You can see the archive of the posts here and here.

Pension reforms protest: According to Associated Press, thousands of people took to the streets to oppose the pension reform which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.

• The move fuelled month-long protests and saw people protesting in different parts in France.

• Several labour unions also joined the protests.

Conclusion: While The Quint could not independently verify the location or the context of the video, it is clear that the video predates the recent violence in France.

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