Is the video true in which three French women beat a crowd of migrants in the underpass?

In early November 2023, a recording from video surveillance cameras dispersed on the Internet, where it is clear how a group of men pester girls in an underground crossing and they have a repulsion. We decided to check if anything similar happened in reality. 

The frames of a 30-second video show how the three girls go down to the transition and encounter a dozen men who begin to grab them by the hands and shout something. Then a fight is tied, during which girls scatter their offenders, demonstrating remarkable self -defense skills. Then the girls run away, leaving men to wallow on the ground in vain attempts to get to their feet. In the video, nothing speaks of where exactly everything happened, but Internet users write that the conflict occurred in Paris between the “fragile French” and the “Arab population”. The video shows the date of shooting - November 1, 2023. The video was published by many Information And Entertaining Portals. She gained hundreds of thousands of views in social networks ("VKontakte" X, Facebook*, Telegram et al.). Users of the Platforms shared it and users (for example, "Zen" And Livejournal). 

“Verified” could not find any information in the authoritative French media about the attack of a crowd of migrants on girls in a pedestrian crossing in early November 2023. In addition, in the English -language segment of the Internet, unlike the Russian -speaking, there is no consensus about exactly where this happened. For example, in the Mossad account on the social network X in the video signature It is saidWhat are the Israeli, although there are also no news about such an incident in the Israeli media.

The video itself raises some questions and suspicions of staging, since, firstly, the whole fight, as it was on purpose, occurs in the field of view of the camera, right in the center of the frame, and secondly, the video was shot in a vertical format, as if initially for publication on Tiktok or Instagram*. In addition, there is a sound in the video that it is atypical enough for urban surveillance cameras.

The earliest publication of this video, which our colleagues-factory from the project managed to find Lead Stories- fast On Instagram on November 2, 2023 in the account Campus Univers Cascades (CUC). This is a professional training center specializing in the production of tricks in the cinema and show, located near Paris. Judging by the video posted on the site, among other things, they put in the center and Scenes of fights. Under the post with a viral video, in addition to a laconic description (“street fight”), there are many hashtags, including #Stuntteam (“Starters' team” - English) and #Cascade (“stunt” - fr.). All this allows us to conclude that CUC shot this staging video as an advertisement for their courses - and, given how wide it was dispersed on the network, they achieved their goal. In favor of the fact that this is precisely the production of the training center, and not the real video, which they found and reposted somewhere, the CUC logo on the hood of one of the attackers also testifies.

Thus, there is no evidence that such a fight actually occurred in France or anywhere else. The video does not look like real shots from video surveillance cameras. In addition, for the first time he was laid out on Instagram of the Center engaged in the production of tricks for cinema and show, and in the description under it, among the hashtags, it was indicated that the video was a team of stuntmen.

*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Photo on the cover: screenshot Instagram Campus.univers.cascades

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Lead Stories. Fact Check: Staged Video of 3 Girls Beating Up Men in Tunnel is Not Real - Shows Stunt School Students
2. Is it true that most of the crimes in Russia are committed by migrants?
3. The Guardian. The 25 Best Stunts in Cinema - Ranked!
4. Independent. 13 Actors Who Turned Down Stunt Doubles To Perform Dangerous Scenes for Real