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Since February 12, French-language Twitter accounts have shared several videos of police violence, sometimes with more than 80,000 views. Some of these violence occurred during the demonstrations in Paris on February 12, 2022, others were actually older and unrelated to the Freedom Motorcade.
Verification in short
- Several real videos of police violence during demonstrations on February 12, 2022 circulated on social networks.
- In the middle of the real image, some people unrelated to the demo slipped away in the real publication using the hashtag #Manifs12Fevrier.
- As a result, two police brutality videos were shared multiple times on Twitter, garnering 2,000 and 4,000 retweets respectively, but the images actually date back to 2019.
- They were filmed during the yellow vest demonstrations, long before the “Freedom Convoy,” and have led to convictions.
Verification Details
“#Manifs12Fevrier police are very violent”. On Twitter, a number of French-speaking accounts shared the violence that took place over the weekend. Demonstrations related to the “Freedom Convoy”.
it turns out publications for field reportersSome acts of violence are actually committed by the police An administrative investigation has also been launched The Paris police headquarters protested after a video showed a police officer pointing a gun at a protester.
But among the numerous publications linked to the hashtag #Manifs12Fevrier, some old photos taken during the 2019 Yellow Vests movement have slipped.
video 1 : A man in a CRS uniform bumps into a yellow vest
exist first video, a police officer in a CRS uniform hit a man in a yellow vest with a baton and punched him in the face. Several clues suggest that the scene likely wasn’t filmed on February 12, 2022. For example, the person featured in the video is not wearing a mask or winter clothes.
To verify the exact origin of this video, a reverse image search can be performed (see how to do it here).This Google search returned Articles published through 2019 Several French media reports. There we found the same video that was actually taken during the demonstration of the yellow vests in Besançon on March 30, 2019.
Thanks to the keyword “2019 Besançon Yellow Vests”, can be found Article reporting the conviction of the police officer featured in the video. On February 11, 2022, he was convicted of assaulting related protesters.
Video 2: A protester is thrown to the ground by the police
second video Also released on the second day of the demonstration on February 12, 2022. We saw a man thrown to the ground by several police officers and then kicked by one of them. But again there is no mask to indicate that these images are not dated February 12, 2022.
If Google reverse image search doesn’t give convincing results, TinEye Tools Traces of these images can be found Article “Hello Beauvoir Square” Published by Mediapart.
The article tells us that the photos were taken on February 23, 2019 at the Trocadero during the fifteenth yellow vest demonstration in Paris. there again, One of the police officers in the video was eventually convicted in November 2020 for this violence.
If you would like to report a photo or video to us for verification, please feel free to contact us via Twitter account @InfoIntoxF24.