Police officers with anti-health pass protesters in France? Intox is circulating abroad

Published on : 07/23/2021 – 5:32 PM

A 22-second video in which we see a police cordon in front of a procession of demonstrators, including yellow vests, has been circulating for a few days on Twitter. According to the many tweets relaying the video, in about fifteen different languages, we would see French police joining the anti-health pass protests on July 17.

This tweet in italian has for example collected nearly 450 “likes” mentions, this other in Mandarin more than 200. On Twitter as on Facebook, we also find about ten occurrences in English, Korean, Swedish or Japanese.

The video relayed by most of these Internet users has been posted on the evening of July 17 by the “Qlobal Army” account, a name that alludes to the pro-Trump Qanon conspiracy movement. The post, retweeted more than 1,300 times, elicited many reactions such as “Vive la France” or “Why don’t we do the same in our country?”

One element is however correct in these tweets: the scene goes well on July 17, during an anti-health pass demonstration, more precisely in Paris.

Indeed, we find the stone wall where the trees protrude to the left of the video and the buildings to the right on a portion of rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, visible here on Google Street View. It is a street at the end of one of the two Parisian demonstrations against the sanitary pass, that of the movement of yellow vests from Plaisance (14th arrondissement of Paris) for Jussieu (5th arrondissement of Paris).

These images actually come from a live demonstration produced by “Civicio”, an independent media which regularly covers the demonstrations of yellow vests. From 3 hours 09 minutes 40 seconds, we actually find the 22-second video where the procession chants “freedom, freedom” with a slightly wider framing.

“A classic event management”

If this video shows a scene of demonstration dated July 17, the gendarmes – and not the police as the sign on their uniform indicates – did not join the demonstrators.

In the initial video, we can already observe that the latter do not chant any slogan and are the only ones to wear surgical masks. They additionally feature protest framing equipment, such as riot shields, loudspeakers and helmets, which are even more visible with the framing of the original live video.

These same gendarmes firmly contain the procession at other times of the full live video, in particular from 31:15:05 on arrival at Jussieu or even a little earlier at 02:32:40 in front of the Notre church. -Dame-de-la-Gare.

Such an alliance between demonstrators and gendarmes is moreover technically impossible, as Frédéric Le Louette, president of the association of gendarme GENDXXI, contacted by the editorial staff of France 24 Observers:

The gendarmes are soldiers, they do not have the right to demonstrate, in civilian clothes or in their uniform. On this video, it is just a classic framing of a demonstration and not a support. The gendarmes are in their role.

The editorial staff of France 24 Observers also contacted the author of the video, Yacine Blotas de Civicio, who leaves no doubt about a non-alliance between gendarmes and demonstrators, even reporting some tensions:

The gendarmes did their job correctly, leaving exit points for the demonstrators while allowing them to advance at a correct pace. But at the end of the mobilization, the procession began to accelerate and a gendarme gassed the head of the procession despite direct orders going in the opposite direction by his major.

The demonstrators put the pressure slightly, but did not show any aggressive attitude, the gassing was therefore not justified and, on the contrary, subsequently triggered some tension.

This is not the first video supposed to represent French security forces in solidarity with anti-sanitary measures demonstrators circulating abroad.

Another video where we see police helmets and batons on the ground applauding a procession of caregivers in June 2020 in Nîmes had also been hijacked after the demonstrations of July 17, 2021 and is being verified by Indian Today.