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| - A video circulating online falsely presents itself as a report from the European news channel Euronews, and claims the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris has called on French farmers to stop protesting, which is not true.
Multiple posts shared the video with the caption “French Farmers coat Ukraine Embassy with manure”.
However this is not a real Euronews report, nor is there any evidence that the Ukrainian Embassy made any such comments about French farmers protesting or that it was sprayed with manure.
The video and its claims appeared on the Russian news site Pravda on 9 February this year.
The video comes amid protests by farmers across several European Union states, including France.
Full Fact has written about other misleading images and videos relating to farmers’ protests in Europe, including a video of farmers supposedly digging up highways leading to Paris and a miscaptioned clip of manure being dumped outside a branch of McDonald’s.
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What does the video show?
The minute-long video imitates the style of a genuine Euronews video with the same white font on a blue background and its logo in the top right corner. Overlaid text claims an “official letter from the diplomatic mission” of Ukraine is calling on French farmers to end their protests.
The text in the video also goes on to claim that Arnaud Rousseau, president of the National Federation of Agricultural Workers’ Unions (FNSEA), has supposedly spoken out against this letter and said Ukraine had “no right to demand anything from the French”.
The video shows a compilation of muted clips with background music, including a tractor seemingly spraying manure on a building, a copy of this alleged letter, and footage appearing to show both Mr Rousseau and the Ukrainian ambassador to France, Omelchenko Vadym, during interviews.
This is not a real Euronews video
However, this is not a real Euronews video. Full Fact could not find the video on the outlet’s website or social media channels.
A spokesperson for Euronews confirmed to reporters at Reuters that the video is “fake” and “has nothing to do with Euronews." They said: “It imitates Euronews’ journalistic style, graphics and format in a sophisticated way.”
The outlet has reportedly said it “encountered a number of similar cases where fake Euronews videos began to circulate online” in the last year.
We’ve previously written about a fake USA Today video, as well as many examples of fake articles, including some supposedly published by the BBC, Mirror and Guardian.
Dumping manure on the Ukraine Embassy?
The clip in the video does not show the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris being sprayed with manure, as claimed in the posts. It actually shows a protest outside the regional council offices for Burgundy-Franche-Comté in Dijon, eastern France.
The footage was shared on X (formerly Twitter) on 15 December 2023 with the caption: “#farmers dump manure and straw on the Regional Council at #Dijon” (translated by Google), and other photos of the scene are also available.
Moreover, the building in the footage is visibly different from the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris, which has not been sprayed with manure according to any reports we could find.
No evidence for the letter
The video includes an image of a letter supposedly sent by the Ukrainian Embassy and calling on the farmers to stop protesting. However, Full Fact could not find any evidence of such a letter in media reports or on the embassy’s website and social media channels.
It has also been reported that the signature shown for Mr Vadym does not match real examples of his signature seen elsewhere.
An FNSEA spokesperson told Reuters that Mr Rousseau had not made the comments attributed to him in the video either.
Full Fact contacted both Euronews and the Ukrainian Embassy for comment. We will update this article if we receive a response.
Image courtesy of Shougissime
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