Claim- French Policemen surrendering in the France Riots
Fact- The video depicting the police surrender is dated 2020 and does not pertain to the recent riots.
A video has gone viral on TikTok, claiming the “surrender of French police in the recent riots of France.” See the posts here and here. The footage shows a group of police officers standing in a queue and discarding their handcuffs.
The catalyst for the unrest lately in France was the fatal shooting of an Algerian teenager by a French police officer on June 27. Subsequently, these protests evolved into widespread riots. See a screenshot from the viral video for reference-
Newschecker-Bangladesh verified the claim and found it to be false.
Fact check/ Verification
Upon conducting a Google reverse image search, we discovered a YouTube short video posted on the official YouTube channel of TRT World, as well as on Twitter. In both places, it is claimed that the videos are associated with a protest incident involving the French police in 2020. This protest took place in June 2020, as a response to the ban on the use of chokeholds.
Furthermore, we found an identical video on June 12, 2020, on the Twitter account of a journalist named Clement Lanot. The video’s caption originally written in French reads in English “Handcuffs thrown to the ground in front of the Bobigny police headquarters. The disgruntled police officers believe that due to Castaner’s recent announcements, they no longer possess the proper means to perform arrests.” The Google translation signifies that the French police officers expressed their discontent by discarding their handcuffs in front of the Bobigny Police Headquarters. They believed that the new arrest method outlined by Castaner left them with limited options to carry out their duties effectively.
We conducted keyword searches to gather information regarding protest events, and multiple reports were found. See reports here- Euronews, France24, Time, and Reuters. According to these reports, following the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a police officer in the United States, the French Interior Minister, Christopher Castaner, declared that the police in France were prohibited from using the chokehold technique during arrests. This can be read here: The Guardian’s. Subsequently, French police officers protested throughout the country. However, it should be noted that this ban on the use of chokeholds was later rescinded.
Earlier on June 27, a 17-year-old teenager of Algerian descent lost his life at the hands of French patrolling police. This incident has been reported by mainstream media such as BBC, The Guardian, and Al-Jazeera. Following this tragic event, widespread protests erupted throughout the country, which eventually escalated into riots. The government, in turn, faced considerable pressure as a result of these events.
Conclusion:
So the viral video is not of the recent riots in France
Result: False
Our Sources:
TRT World, Twitter, Clement Lanot
– Euronews, France24, Time, and ReutersBBC, The Guardian, and Al-Jazeera.
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