In February 2024, Vladimir Solovyov, the Tsargrad TV channel and other resources reported that the French President had escaped from a crowd of protesters in Paris. The story is illustrated with a photograph of a running politician. We have verified the authenticity of this photo.
The viral photo shows Emmanuel Macron running surrounded by several men in suits. Numerous publications say that the French president had to run away from the crowd and this was filmed by correspondents covering the event. TV presenter on his Telegram channel on February 24, 2024 Vladimir Solovyov (280,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) commented on the image: “Macron flashed his heels at an agricultural exhibition in Paris, where disgruntled protesting farmers broke through his cordon. It’s not yet clear whether this photo is real or not, but French Twitter has already gone wild with memes.”
Similar posts appeared in Telegram channels Colonelcassad (297,000 views), "Sheikh Tamir" (166,000), "Pool N3"(117,000), "Banksta"(117,000), "Bocharik (yep, that same one)"(105,000), "Gasparyan"(82,000), MDK Premium (65,000), etc. The publication “New news" And "Italics", as well as the TV channel "Constantinople". Photos of the alleged escape from the farmers are also being distributed by pro-Russian English-language accounts on the X social network: Zlatti71 (159,000 views), Lord Bebo (47,000) and S p r i n t e r (14,000). Similar publications can be found in Zen (examples here And here).
Since January 2024, mass protests by farmers have been taking place in the European Union, including France. Reasons for these actions vary from country to country. Thus, in France, demonstrators perform against low food prices, planned cuts to government diesel subsidies for farmers, free trade agreements and environmental rules that protesters say are cutting into their profits. In response, the French government it's gone made some concessions, but the protests continued.
February 24, 2024 took place opening of the 60th International Agricultural Exhibition in Paris. On this day, the event was also attended by Macron, whom the protesters booed, shouted insults and demanded his resignation. How reports France 24 TV channel reported that disgruntled farmers have repeatedly clashed with police, resulting in several arrests. At the same time, the president held a two-hour meeting with the leaders of the three main farm unions. “I always prefer dialogue to confrontation,” Macron said. “I’m telling you that there is work going on on the ground, we are in the process of simplifying things.”
As for the photograph of Macron distributed in February 2024, it has nothing to do with current events. “Verified” conducted a reverse search on the image in the service TinEye and discovered the original photo on the website of a British photo agency Alamy. The author of the photo is Christophe Petit Tesson, who, according to the caption, captured how “French President Emmanuel Macron runs to greet people at the International Agricultural Exhibition on its opening day in Paris.” The date is also indicated: Saturday, February 25, 2023. The same photo with a similar description was posted on the website of the American agency Getty Images.
On the Internet you can find other photos the same moment, taken from different angles. All of them indicate that they were made last year during the 59th International Agricultural Fair, held in the French capital from February 25 to March 5, 2023.
Thus, Russian publications, TV and radio presenters and Telegram channels passed off an old photo as a new one and illustrated a fictitious event with it.
Cover photo: social networks
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