Video from Italy miscaptioned as footage of police brutality in France

By: Ankita Kulkarni
July 7 2023

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(Trigger Warning: This story contains descriptions of distressing visuals and mentions of assault. Reader discretion is advised.)

Context

A video of three uniformed men assaulting a woman is being widely shared on social media with the claim that it shows police brutality in France, where protests erupted following the killing of a teenage boy by a police officer. In the video, a woman is brutally beaten up by three uniformed men in a two-wheeler parking space. The men also use batons and what appears to be some spray or a stun gun to hurt the woman. 

Sharing the distressing visuals, a Twitter user wrote (in Arabic), "French police brutality and repression towards a woman, where is Amnesty and the European Parliament, and where are the western countries that crack us down on human rights in Sudan, Libya, Syria, and and and... where is France 24 channel (sic)." This tweet had gained over 22,000 views at the time of publishing.

However, Logically Facts found that the video is not from France. 

In Fact

A reverse image search of a screengrab from the viral video led us to a report published by Agenzia Nova, an Italian media outlet, on May 24. The report carried a screenshot of the video and noted that police officials assaulted a 41-year-old Brazilian trans woman in front of an elementary school in Milan, Italy. According to the report, the police officials charged the woman for allegedly exhibiting "odd and potentially threatening behavior in front of a school." 

The same video was also posted on Twitter by Marco Furfaro, deputy manager of Partito Democratico (Democratic Party in Italy), on May 24. Sharing the video, he wrote: "Pepper spray, batons, kicks. Against a trans woman on the ground, helpless, unarmed, in fact, already immobilized. What happened in Milan is unacceptable. More: it is barbarism. And there is not and cannot exist a "before" that makes it justifiable or, even worse, acceptable. The offender must be arrested, not beaten to death. Least of all when it's helpless. Punish what is in effect an abuse (translated from Italian)."

Euro News also reported on the incident on May 26, stating that people across the country condemned the incident as yet another instance of transphobic behavior and growing discrimination against the trans community.

The evidence above confirms that the video is from Italy and was filmed weeks before the protests in France broke out. 

The Verdict

A video from Italy showing police officers assaulting a trans woman has been falsely shared as police brutality against protestors in France. Therefore, we mark the claim false.