A video of Muslims offering prayers in the streets of Clichy, a suburb near Paris in France, is viral with the claim that it shows the “current status” in the said country. However, we could trace the video back to 2017.
CLAIM
The claim along with the video reads: “Current status in france.... blocking even the passage of ambulance, other commuters have to wait till their namaz on road gets over.....(sic)”
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A simple keyword search of “Muslim street prayer France” led us to several news reports about protests in Clichy, a suburb near Paris in 2017.
Another keyword search in French of ‘street prayers in Clichy’ led us to a Facebook video by Russian news agency, Sputnik France, showing another street prayer, captioned, “Prière de rue à Clichy après la fermeture d'une mosquée…”
(Translation: “Street prayer in Clichy after the closing of a mosque ...”)
Using the same caption we performed a keyword search for videos on Google and came across the original video uploaded by LDC News Agency, dated 22 March 2017.
A comparison of frames of the viral video, with the original video by LDC News Agency, can be seen below.
Same store by the name of ‘Camaieu’ and ‘Credit Mutuel’ bank can be seen in both the visuals.
In this comparison too, same physical structures and positioning of individuals can be seen.
The description by LDC News Agency states that Muslims offered prayers in the streets of Clichy, after they were evicted from their local mosque. “The municipality and owner of the premises wants to install a new media library there.”
While The Quint has not independently verified the date stamp of the viral video, but since we could trace it back to 2017, it is evident that it does not show the current situation in France as claimed.
The Quint has earlier debunked several claims that had revived videos from Clichy’s protests in 2017 as recent ones. A video of Muslims being evacuated from the mosque, and another of a clash between praying Muslims and citizens protesting against ‘illegal’ street prayers, were revived as recent incidents in France.
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