Is the video of three French women beating up a crowd of migrants in an underground passage true?

At the beginning of November 2023, a recording from CCTV cameras circulated on the Internet, where it can be seen how a group of men accost girls in an underground passage and they fight back. We decided to check if anything similar happened in reality. 

The 30-second video footage shows how three girls descend into the passage and are confronted by a dozen men who begin to grab their hands and shout something. Then a fight ensues, during which the girls scatter their offenders, demonstrating remarkable self-defense skills. The girls then run away, leaving the men lying on the ground in a futile attempt to get back on their feet. Nothing in the video says where exactly everything happened, but Internet users write that the conflict took place in Paris between “fragile French women” and the “Arab population.” The video shows the shooting date of November 1, 2023. The video was published by many informational And entertaining portals. She received hundreds of thousands of views on social networks (“VKontakte", X, Facebook*, Telegram etc.). Users of blogging platforms also shared it (for example, “Zen" And LiveJournal). 

“Verified” was unable to find any information in authoritative French media about an attack by a crowd of migrants on girls in a pedestrian crossing in early November 2023. In addition, in the English-speaking segment of the Internet, unlike the Russian-speaking segment, there is no consensus about where exactly this happened. For example, in the Mossad social network account X in the caption to the video it saysthat we are talking about Israeli women, although there is also no news about such an incident in the Israeli media.

The video itself raises some questions and suspicions about being staged, since, firstly, the entire fight, as if on purpose, takes place 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 originally for publication on TikTok or Instagram*. In addition, the video has sound, which is quite atypical for city surveillance cameras.

The earliest publication of this video that our fellow fact-checkers from the project were able to find Lead Stories, — fast on Instagram dated November 2, 2023 in the account Campus Univers Cascades (CUC). This is a professional training center specializing in film and show stunts, located near Paris. Judging by the videos posted on the website, among other things, they also put in the center fight scenes. Under the post with the viral video, in addition to the laconic description (“street fight”), there are many hashtags, including #stuntteam (“stunt team” - English) and #cascadeuse (“stuntwoman” — French). All this leads to the conclusion that CUC made this staged video as an advertisement for their courses - and, given how widely it was distributed on the Internet, they achieved their goal. The fact that this is a production of a training center, and not a real video that they found and reposted somewhere, is also evidenced by the CUC logo on the hoodie of one of the attackers.

Thus, there is no evidence that such a fight actually took place in France or anywhere else. The video does not resemble real CCTV footage. In addition, for the first time it was posted on the Instagram of a center engaged in staging stunts for films and shows, and in the description under it, among the hashtags, it was indicated that the video featured a team of stuntmen.

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

Cover photo: Instagram screenshot 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 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