A six-second-long clip of a civilian slapping French President Emmanuel Macron while he is interacting with the public is viral on social media. One Luke Rudkowski posted the video on Twitter with the caption “Emmanuel Macron got slapped up again”.

News agency ANI published the video on Twitter, which was later picked up by others.

Several prominent Indian media outlets also published news reports about this incident based on social media claims. This includes Hindustan Times, Latestly, TV9 Bharatvarsh, Amar Ujala, OneIndia Hindi, News18 Uttar Pradesh, and First India News.

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Smriti Sharma, a journalist with News Nation and Brajesh Srivastava, a journalist with News1India, too, shared the news on Twitter.

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These media outlets also mention that the individual who slapped President Macron is a woman in an “olive green t-shirt”.

Fact-check

We performed a keyword search on YouTube using relevant phrases and came across a video from June last year when President Macron was slapped by an individual. Similar to the present video, we see Macron interacting with the public and being slapped on the face by an individual.

Upon watching it closely, we noticed that the video from 2021 is actually the same video that is viral again but shot from a different angle. Here are a few characteristics that helped us establish it is the same video:

  1. The three security personnel standing beside Macron in the viral clip are in the exact position in the clip from 2021

2. A woman in a pink cap can be seen in both clips.

Additionally, Alt News reached out to Punio (identity withheld on request), an engineering student from France, who helped us geolocate the viral clip from 2021. Through this, we were able to establish the clip viral today is the same incident from 2021 but shot from a different angle.

Both Hindustan Times and Latestly published syndicated news reports in which they mention the individual in the now-viral clip as a woman in an olive-green t-shirt but the individual in the clip from 2021 is a man in a khaki t-shirt. However, the fact is that both reports are describing the same incident.

To sum it up, a number of prominent media outlets published news reports based on social media claims that the French President was slapped by an individual. It turns out that the viral clip is actually from 2021. News agency ANI also retracted its report.

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About the Author

Kalim is a journalist with a keen interest in tech, misinformation, culture, etc