Fact Check: Protest scene from fictional French film being linked to France riots
The image is a scene from the French film Athena.
By Md Mahfooz Alam Published on 3 July 2023 11:10 AM GMT
Screenshot from the report of One India
Hyderabad: An image of several people in a police vehicle is doing rounds on social media. It shows a masked man holding France flag on top of a police van and another hanging out from the sliding door of the vehicle brandishing a gun. Those sharing have linked it to the recent violence that has broken out in France.
Media Outlet One India shared the image claiming it was a real event from the ongoing riots in France.
(Source: One India)
Protests have swept across France following the death of a teenager as a result of the excessive use of force by the police on June 27. As per reports, the teenager, Nahel (17), was a resident of Nanterre, a suburb to the west of Paris. He was allegedly driving a car without a license around the city when two policemen stopped him. The vehicle did not stop resulting in allegedly one of the police officers firing at the vehicle killing Nahel.
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the image is a scene from the French film Athena.
On performing a reverse image search, we came across a BBC report from July 2. It said that the image is from a 2022 French film Athena, a fictional account of rioting in a city suburb.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search on YouTube and came across the opening sequence of the film published by a channel called ‘tibsogameTV.’ At around 1.26 minutes in the video, the scene from which the viral image was taken appears.
Athena was directed by Romain Gavra. It was released in 2022 and stars actors Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, and Anthony Bajon.
Hence, we conclude that the viral image is from the film Athena being passed off as an incident from the ongoing riots in France.
