Fact Check: AI-generated image of Eiffel Tower area falsely linked to recent French riots

Hyderabad: An image showing chaos and fire with smoke engulfing a street near the Eiffel Tower in Paris is going viral on social media. Users claim that it shows the continuing violence due to the recent riots in France.

A user shared the image with the caption, “France has witnessed unprecedented violence in the last few days. Coverage of the #FranceRiots by Western media is in stark difference to the similar violence in Delhi. Reactions of so-called Indian left-liberal is equally appalling. (sic)”

Several others have also shared the image claiming the same.

Fact Check

A NewsMeter investigation found that the image is AI-generated and does not show represent any real incident.

A closer look at the picture reveals many discrepancies. On the right side, the image has people standing upright in the middle of a blaze. There is also a street lamp hanging in the air on the right without a pole.

On Google Maps, using Street View, we searched for the building and the road featured in the viral image in Paris. But could not find a visual similar to it.

Finally, we analysed the image with AI image-detecting tools such as Optic AIornot and Hugging Face. The results of both tools confirm that the image is most likely AI-generated.

Hence, we conclude that the image showing chaos near Eiffel Tower is AI-generated and is falsely linked to recent riots in France.