French protests are exploited politically

Burning buses, half-naked raves, and smoke over Paris. The story of the French school protests is full of false images spread by those who want to make political points and present the situation as worse than it is. A print from Le Monde, 2026-10-22 19:38 Original source of the article: https://www.dn.se/varlden/franska-protesterna-utnyttjas-politiskt-har-ar-falska-bilderna-som-sprids/ French protests are exploited politically – here are the false images that are spread Get more from DN as logged in Do you know you can create a free account on DN? As logged in you can access several smart features. - Follow your interests - Newsletter A group of police officers run towards some masked people, then stop, greet them, and leave. The clip has been spread among others by a French left-wing activist with over 43,000 followers. He believes that the clip shows that civil-dressed police carried out some of the violence, in connection with the nationwide demonstrations in the country. "On October 17th, an army of civil-dressed police received orders to spread chaos and destruction. Macronism is fascist," states the post which has received 4,000 shares. The police in the clip are not French but Belgian, and are on Place de la Bourse in Brussels. On their backs is "politie", not the French "police". What the police do in the clip cannot be established. In another clip, which was already spread in early October, a burning bus rolls down a street. It has been shared by among others by American right-wing figures like Alex Jones and the political commentator Benny Johnson. Through a so-called reverse image search, you can find the images in media reports from 2023. The bus began to burn after a mechanical failure, in the French city of Nîmes. The demonstrations in France started as a protest against the poor quality of the country's high schools and have turned into riots all over the country. There are plenty of examples of both police brutality and violent demonstrators who plundered shops. But those who spread false images often try to make political points or exaggerate the already serious situation. An image published by a French pilot on Threads on October 18th is alleged to show how the smoke from the fires around Paris is visible from the air in the cockpit. The image has spread widely, but the tool Synth ID shows that it is manipulated using OpenAI's tools. Another AI-generated image is alleged to incorrectly show an older couple being robbed of everything including their clothes in Paris. The image is still spreading but has been marked as false on Meta's platforms after fact-checking by several media outlets. Private individuals have also been exposed. An image of a young woman was published by an American account on Monday claiming that she is a "left-wing activist" and "one of the greatest defenders of increased immigration". The account holder, who believes the riots are a result of immigration, falsely claims that the woman is outside her own exclusive shop that was plundered. The post was copied a few hours later by a Dutch account, both have over two million views. The image has been shared by several influential right-wing private individuals from several countries with comments such as "some learn the hard way" and "she asked for it". The image is from a video clip that shows what actually happened. The woman, who appears to be a demonstrator herself, stands in front of the entrance to the Franprix grocery store on Rue du Faubourg du Temple in Paris and tries to stop the looters. "Stop, why are you doing this?", "This is not the goal", she shouts in the clip published by among others BBC. When the demonstrations broke out in September, the French authorities stated that foreign influence had not had any greater impact in mobilizing the French people. Earlier in the week, however, President Emmanuel Macron warned of influence from foreign actors. The Russian opposition research group Antibot4navalnyj has shown that the pro-Russian bot network Matrjosjka uses the demonstrations in its disinformation, although with very little impact. Iran has also exploited the situation and uses rhetoric common to the Iranian regime, where they point to events in the Western world to downplay the oppression of their own population. Both Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and propaganda accounts have criticized Macron. "Let us be the voice of the oppressed French students, regime change now," states a post.