“The end of the euro. The return to the franc.” The description is surprising and in the context of inflation, the news could be likely. Faced with rising prices and endless discussions with major retailers, has the government decided to take drastic measures for the country’s economy? This could have been possible, except that the video in question which went viral on Facebook (it has been viewed 1.5 million times) is actually a video montage. 20 minutes tells you.
FAKE OFF
This video montage is nothing new, as evidenced by the rather outdated images on the television set. What’s more, the images show the 7:45 p.m. set broadcast on M6. But now, on-set presenter Nathalie Renoux presents 12:45, still on the same channel. It is therefore highly likely that the video is an old publication.
By doing a reverse image search, it is possible to find a trace of what appears to be a fake TV newscast. On February 1, 2012, Pure Media published an article titled “Zapping: first images of the “fake newspaper” of “Capital””. It is in fact a docu-fiction imagined by the M6 news magazine to illustrate the end of the euro and on this occasion a false edition of 19:45 was also recorded.
“A concrete visual sequence”
“In order not to be boring, we were obliged to renew the form of reporting. It was unthinkable to treat this subject in a traditional way. “Capital” is certainly an economics magazine which must inform, but it is also a prime time show. We must be dynamic, direct and offer concrete visual sequences,” Jérôme Bureau, then director of information for the channel, told TV Grandes Chaînes magazine at the time.
The mockumentary, however, requires a little context. It’s 2012 and the presidential election is approaching in France. More than 2,000 kilometers away, the Greek economic crisis is worrying Europe. Among the French candidates, Marine Le Pen is the only one to propose leaving the euro and dreams of a perfect equivalence between a franc and a euro. An element taken up by the mockumentary which takes the opposite view of the measure. In the M6 economic magazine, this solution is simply catastrophic: inflation is increasing and so are prices.
Return now in 2023. Is the solution of returning to the franc still relevant? Yes, it still runs through the minds of some Eurosceptics. However, the end of the single currency is less and less popular and has even disappeared from Marine Le Pen’s program between 2017 and 2022. And it is the same among the French. According to an IFOP-Fiducial study for the JDD, published last January, a little more than a quarter of French people (26%) would like to see France abandon the euro for the franc. A decreasing figure, as they were more than 38% in 2010.