Fact Check: French President Emmanuel Macron blames Indian Air Force for Rafale manufacturer’s market loss? Here’s the truth
A video claiming to show French President Emmanuel Macron blaming the Indian Air Force for massive market losses to Rafale manufacturer Dassault Aviation is going viral.
By - M Ramesh Naik
Claim:The video shows French President Emmanuel Macron blaming the Indian Air Force for a billion-dollar Rafale market loss and rejecting further defence partnerships.
Fact:The claim is false. Macron made no such remarks. The viral clip is AI-manipulated.
Hyderabad: French President Emmanuel Macron visited Mumbai on February 17 for bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The discussions focused on strengthening economic, strategic, defence, and innovation cooperation. The leaders later delivered a joint statement highlighting progress in the India–France strategic partnership.
Amid this, a video began circulating on X claiming that Macron criticised the Indian Air Force during the event. The viral clip shows Macron purportedly saying, “We have already lost a billion dollars of Rafale market because of the inefficiency of the Indian air force. We can’t be a part of any failed organisation to further tarnish our name.”
The clip was shared in an X post with the caption, “Breaking News: Emannuel Macron spills the beans at India AI Summit ‘We have already lost a billion dollars Rafale market because of inefficiency of the Indian air force. We can't be a part of any failed organisation to further tarnish our name.’” (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found the claim to be false. Macron made no such remarks during the joint statement.
No credible reports of such comments
Keyword searches using combinations of “Macron,” “Rafale,” “Indian Air Force,” and “defence cooperation” yielded no credible media reports suggesting that Macron criticised India’s Air Force or defence ties. A review of Macron’s official communications and public statements also showed no reference to the alleged remarks.
Official joint statement says otherwise
We reviewed the official India–France joint statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs on February 17. The document emphasises expanded cooperation, including defence collaboration, innovation partnerships, and discussions at the AI Impact Summit. It contains no criticism of India’s defence forces or any indication of strained ties.
Original video traced
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led to the original livestream uploaded by ANI. Its watermark is visible in the footage. The broadcast, streamed on February 17, shows the complete joint statement delivered by Modi and Macron in Mumbai.
A review of the full address confirms that Macron did not make any remarks about Rafale losses, the Indian Air Force, or defence partnership concerns.
Signs of manipulation
A comparison of the viral clip’s audio with the original footage shows mismatched tone, pacing, and voice modulation. This suggests that genuine visuals from the event were combined with manipulated or AI-generated audio.
We extracted the audio and analysed it using Deepfake-O-Meter. Four detectors flagged the audio as likely AI-generated, with high confidence scores.
The viral video claiming that French President Emmanuel Macron blamed the Indian Air Force for market losses to Dassault Aviation is manipulated. The original speech contains no such remarks. Therefore, the claim is false.
