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| - Fact Check: Video of hooded men brandishing guns is OLD, has nothing to do with ongoing French riots
India Today found that the video is three years old and has nothing to do with the recent riots in the country. It shows Chechen gang members in Dijon, France.
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India Today Fact Check
The video dates back to June 2020 and shows Chechen gang members brandishing weapons. It's unrelated to the recent violence.
Amid the ongoing unrest in France sparked by the police killing a teenager, a video of several masked men brandishing axes and firing automatic weapons has gone viral on social media. "Armed rioters show off their Arsenal of weapons in France," read a tweet.
Another tweet said, “RIOTERS arrogantly toss around their weapons #FranceHasFallen. France, UK, Ireland are letting illegals violently run free & the French govt is letting them. Any who oppose are racist, the criminal.” Other similar tweets containing the video can be seen here, here, here, and here.
India Today found that the video is nearly three-years-old and unrelated to the recent violence in France.
Our Probe
Using a reverse-image search, we found a Daily Mail video report featuring the same clip, which noted that the men in the video were members of a Chechen gang in Dijon, France.
The report, however, did not provide a date for the incident. Our subsequent search using relevant keywords led us to a report in The Sun from June 16, 2020. This report mentioned that the streets of Dijon were overrun by "bloodthirsty Chechen and Algerian gangs" vowing to carry out "revenge attacks".
Per a Daily Mail report from June 16, 2020, the violence was triggered by a 16-year-old Chechen being assaulted, which was investigated as “attempted murder”. The Sun, in one of its reports, noted that the boy was allegedly "attacked" by Algerian drug dealers. Following this, Chechens reacted violently, rushing into housing estates in vast numbers in an attempt to find who was responsible, the Daily Mail, quoting a source, reported.
A comparison of keyframes from the viral video and images featured in the Daily Mail report about this incident makes it clear that both videos are the same.
Following the spate of violence, the military and armed police were deployed to control the situation. Four people were arrested. Thus, it is clear that a three-year-old video from France is being falsely peddled as recent footage.
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