French President Covered in Flower Garlands? Picture is Edited

The French President's photo was morphed to add more flower garlands than actually present.

A morphed photograph of French President Emmanuel Macron is being shared to claim that he was covered in flowers during his visit to French Polynesia. While Macron was welcomed with garlands, the photo has been edited to add more flowers, which covers most of Macron's torso.

CLAIM

Several social media users shared the photograph and said that Macron was turned into a "human wreath" during his visit.

The post was credited to a journalist, Noga Tarnopolsky, who had posted this picture on 27 July. An archived version of her tweet can be found here.

ANI National Bureau Chief Naveen Kapoor, too, retweeted a post with the picture and wrote, 'who says only Indian politicians like flowers?'

Several other claims made on social media can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Using reverse image search, we found multiple pictures of the President's visit to French Polynesia, which showed flower garlands on him. In the photos, the flower wreaths rested around the President's shoulders and did not go further down.

We looked up 'Macron visits French Polynesia' on Google and found a report on the event by EuroNews, which also carried a video of the event.

In the video, we can see Macron being welcomed with garlands from 00:23 onwards, and the frame that has been morphed can be seen at the 58-second mark in the clip.

A video of the French President addressing the Polynesian people was also published on Macron's Twitter.

Lorsqu'on parle des conséquences du dérèglement climatique, on parle de vies. Pour la première fois, le Gouvernement français et la Polynésie ont passé un contrat de 50 millions d'euros pour la construction de 17 abris afin de protéger en cas de cyclone. pic.twitter.com/v9ORjZTegj

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 27, 2021

Clearly, the visuals of French President Emmanuel Macron being buried under flower garlands on the first day of his visit to French Polynesia is edited. Macron was welcomed with garlands, but they did not cover him till his knees.

(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)

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