Old Video of Animals Running On Streets Falsely Linked With Protests in France

These videos of animals running on streets are old clips and unrelated to ongoing protests in France.

A compilation of two videos showing a horse, a zebra and three lions galloping on streets at night is going viral on the internet.

The claim states that these animals were 'released' from the Paris zoo during the ongoing protests in France.

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

What's the truth?: These visuals are old and unrelated to the recent protests that happened in France.

What protests?: France has been witnessing clashes between the public and the police after the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager who was allegedly killed at the hands of the police for driving a car without a license.

The truth of the first video: We noticed 'Saint-Denis' written on top of the viral video, which is the capital city of a French Island called Réunion.

• On performing a relevant keyword search, we came across an old YouTube video from 12 February 2020.

• The video matched the viral video and was titled in French, "Lions roam in Saint-Denis at night without any surveillance".

• We also came across a Twitter post and a Facebook post sharing the same video on 11 February 2020.

• Both posts stated that this video is from Saint-Denis.

Second video is old as well: For this video, too, we performed a relevant keyword search and came across a report by NDTV shared on 14 April 2020.

• The report also carried screenshots from the viral video and mentioned that these animals escaped from a circus.

• Another report from Huffington Post from 11 April 2020 carried more such videos of the animals running around on the streets.

• It stated animals from the Badin circus in Ormesson-sur-Marne escaped and headed to the streets of Champigny-sur-Marne, in Val-de-Marne.

• A similar report also shared by a French news outlet, Le Parisien, carrying the same viral video.

Zoo's clarification on Twitter: The claims mentioned that these animals were 'released by protestors' from the Paris zoo.

• Paris Zoological Park replied to one such claim on Twitter on 3 July.

• They dismissed the claims and said all animals are safe in the zoo.

Conclusion: Although we could not independently verify the context of the videos, it is evident that these visuals are old and predate the France protests.

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