A clip circulating online does not show French police joining current student protests. Al Jazeera’s fact-check traced the footage to Paris in March 2023, when gendarmes escorted demonstrators towards a metro station.
The video spread on X and Instagram on October 5, with posts claiming it showed officers resigning en masse and siding with protesters. A review of the footage’s date and location found it was recorded more than three years earlier.
Al Jazeera’s open-source investigation found that the clip first circulated during demonstrations against France’s pension reform in March 2023. A comparison of buildings and other visible features with maps placed the scene on Rue Chauchat in Paris.
The figures in the footage are gendarmes escorting demonstrators, not police officers announcing their resignations. On March 22, 2023, security forces stopped a march travelling from Paris’s 18th arrondissement towards the Opéra in the 9th. Dozens of protesters were surrounded on Rue Rossini.
After waiting for about an hour, the group was escorted to the nearest metro station to prevent new gatherings. Gendarmes passed along Rue Chauchat on the way to Le Peletier station. That is the scene later recirculated as if it showed a current event.