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| - Fact Check: This French protest against public namaaz is unrelated to Raj Thackeray's ultimatum on loudspeakers
The video from France is more than four years old. The video showed a 2017 protest in Paris against a public namaaz for blocking roads and sidewalks.
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India Today Fact Check
The video is more than four years old. Hundreds of French politicians and residents took out a protest rally in a Paris suburb in 2017 against the public offering of namaaz.
At a meeting in Thane, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray recently reiterated his demand for the removal of loudspeakers in the mosques. He further warned of Hanuman Chalisa recitals in front of mosques by his men if loudspeakers were not removed by May 3.
A video, showing people protesting against a public prayer by Muslims, went viral with the claim that it was a recent protest in France that was inspired by Thackeray’s ultimatum.
The caption to one such video reads, “RAJ THACKERAY EFFECT IN PARIS.....In Paris, as Muslims pray on roads, blocking streets, they are met with equally loud singing of the French National Anthem by French citizens.”
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here, and here.
India Today Anti-Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that the claim along with the video was misleading. This video from France is more than four years old. The video showed a 2017 protest in Paris against a public namaaz for blocking roads and sidewalks.
AFWA probe
A reverse search of the keyframes of the video with appropriate keywords led us to multiple reports from 2017, with images similar to the visuals seen in the viral video. According to these reports, in November 2017, hundreds of politicians and residents of Clichy, a suburb in Paris, protested singing the French national anthem while Muslims were offering namaaz in public.
The incident was also reported by the BBC on November 10, 2017. As per the BBC, the protesters had claimed that such “prayers are an unacceptable use of public space in France's strictly secular system”.
Rémi Muzeau, the right-wing mayor of Clichy, who led the demonstration, called on the interior ministry to ban street prayers. The worshippers, however, said they had nowhere else to go since the town hall took over the prayer room.
A blue banner similar to the one held by protesters in the viral video can also be seen in this BBC report. It reads "STOP AUX PRIRES DE RUE ILLGALES" in French, which in English means, "STOP ILLEGAL STREET PRAYERS".
A video from the same protest with visuals similar to the viral video was also uploaded on the YouTube channel of the Associated Press on November 15, 2017, with the title "Paris suburb tries to stop Muslim street prayers".
The video description reads, "On Nov 10, 2017, tensions have erupted as residents and the mayor of a Paris suburb on Friday tried to block Muslims from praying in the street, in a dispute that reflects nationwide problems with mosque shortages."
This video was earlier fact-checked by AFWA in 2020 when it circulated in the backdrop of a teacher beheading incident in Paris.
It is thus clear that the video in circulation is more than four years old and not related to Thackeray's demand for a loudspeaker ban.
(With inputs from Adarsh Singh)
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