France is seeing turmoil in its election process. Amidst this, a video was shared on X where a thousand Muslims can be seen offering prayer on the streets. While sharing the video, the users are claiming the video to be from France. A user named Salman Momika wrote, ” Today, the #French decided that France would remain under Islamic rule by giving their votes to the leftist communists.”
Fact Check
We investigated the viral video by putting its keyframes into Google reverse image search During the process we found the video posted on a Turkish media website, Yenisafak dated 4 May 2022. The headline of the article, when translated, read ” Thousands of Muslims performed Eid prayers on the streets of Moscow“. Furthermore, the article mentioned, “Thousands of Muslims who could not fit into mosques in Moscow, the capital of Russia, performed the Eid al-Fitr prayers on the streets. In the streets where the police took security measures, Muslims stood to pray on their prayer rugs wherever they found suitable.”
Another media outlet, The Moscow Times, dated 3 May 2022, also published the report with matching pictures from the video.
The Moscow Times’ report mentioned a Mosque, The Cathedral Mosque. Taking the clue, we closely inspected the video and found a mosque with a golden dome present in the video. When geolocated, it was found to be the Moscow Cathedral Mosque in Russia. You can see the comparison below.
Conclusion
Thus, from the fact check, it is confirmed that the viral video of thousands of Muslims praying on the streets is not from France but from May 2022 in Russia.
DFRAC Analysis: Misleading
