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| - Fact Check: Netizens fall for parody account of Macron congratulating India on Rafale
Many Indian netizens are going gaga over French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated India on Twitter before the first batch of Rafale fighter jets arrived from France. AFWA finds the truth behind the tweet.
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India Today Fact Check
This is a parody Twitter account of Macron. Till the filing of this story, he has not commented on the arrival of Rafales in India.
Soon after the first batch of Rafale fighter jets took off from France, a tweet, purportedly by French President Emmanuel Macron, congratulating India went viral on social media.
“Congratulations INDIA. Rafale on the way” reads the tweet.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the tweet was made by a parody Twitter account of Macron. The Twitter bio of the account itself mentions that.
However, social media users, believing that the tweet by made by the French President himself retweeted and shared screenshots of the same in thousands. Till the time of writing this article, Macron has not commented on the arrival of the first batch of five Rafale jets from France to India.
While retweeting the viral tweet, many users have thanked Macron for delivering the Rafales to India. The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
About the Twitter handle
The account, created in January this year, has around 6,000 followers, most of whom are Indians. The handle “@MacronEmmauel” is very similar to the actual Twitter profile of the French President, which is “@EmmanuelMacron”, thus confusing many.
The simplest way to call out a fake or parody account of bigger personalities is the absence of a blue tick, which the real account of Macron must have. When the account was created in January, it liked many unrelated tweets of random Indian users, an action highly unlikely by Macron.
Another tweet by this account, related to the delivery of Rafales to India, has also gone viral. “Congratulations INDIA. Finally, we have delivered the first batch of Rafale Jets to you,” reads the tweet.
We checked the verified Twitter account of Macron and found that until the writing of this article, he has not tweeted anything related to the landing of Rafales in India on July 29.
In September 2018, Macron had broken his silence on the Rafale controversy, saying it was a government-to-government discussion and he was not in charge when the Rafale deal was signed.
Before that, in an interview with India Today, Macron said that if the Narendra Modi government wants to disclose some of the critical information covered under the secrecy clause of the deal, France would not object to it.
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