Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Montpellier on April 19 – Guillaume Horcajuelo / AP / SIPA
- Monday April 19, Emmanuel Macron and the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin went to Montpellier for a trip on the theme of security.
- A video supposed to show Montpellier residents booing the president and throwing snowballs – even cobblestones – at his car, has gone viral on social networks.
- These images of tensions actually show supporters of the opponent Alexeï Navalny to attack a vehicle of the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, last January in Moscow.
The car of Emmanuel Macron would it have been the target of projectiles during a recent visit to Montpellier? In any case, this is what a video posted on social networks suggests, especially on TikTok,
where it has been shared over 13,000 times. The head of state would have been taken to task with cries of “Macron resignation”.
Shot at night, these images show demonstrators throwing projectiles, presumably snowballs and cobblestones, at a car that tries, choppy, to move through the crowd. In comments, some Internet users express their doubts as to the authenticity of the video: “Fake the president was in Montpellier during the day”, “Since when has it been snowing in Montpellier?” “, Or” It’s not in France. “
The weather forecast and the images broadcast by several media about the visit of the President of the Republic to Montpellier on Monday April 19
demonstrate that there was not the slightest flake or snowball in the capital of Hérault that day.
FAKE OFF
As we have already explained in one of our articles, Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Montpellier was widely covered by the media, which allow us to retrace his itinerary. In the company of Gerald Darmanin, the Head of State went to the police station around 11:20 am, to the hoot of some demonstrators.
After a tour in an unmarked car with a team from the anti-crime brigade (BAC), the President of the Republic went to the north-west of Montpellier, in the district of La Paillade, around 2:50 p.m., before arriving at the cash desk. family allowances (CAF) around 4:10 p.m., the last stage of his visit, which also ended before nightfall.
Images shot in Russia
None of the media that covered his trip, such as Franceinfo,
BFMTV or Midi-Free, did not mention snowballs on the occasion of this visit by the president. And for good reason: the video that has gone viral on social networks was shot during a demonstration in Moscow on January 23, 2021.
It shows supporters of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny – who was then in pre-trial detention – attacking a vehicle of the FSB, the Russian intelligence service. The daily Komsomolskaya Pravda
has also dedicated an article to an activist arrested for having participated in the riots. The article features a photo of the car, taken on Moscow’s Tsvetnoy Boulevard, the newspaper said. The scene was also relayed
in a report by Belarusian state broadcaster BTRC, report
our colleagues from AFP.
In total, more than a thousand people were arrested by the police in Russia on January 23 during demonstrations in support of the opponent.