By Archis Chowdhury
A video showing French President Emmanuel Macron getting hit by an egg at a public gathering is viral with the claim that it shows Macron being attacked by an egg during his first public appearance since the approval of the French pension reform law.
BOOM found these claims to be false; the video is from 2017, and shows the French president being hit on the head with an egg while attending an agricultural fair in Paris during his campaign for the presidential position, and has nothing to do with the pension reform bill in France which was signed by Macron in April 2023.
The controversial bill raised the retirement age from 62 to 64 with a requirement that the retiree has been employed for at least 43 years. The provisions of the bill, along with the French government's invocation of Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, which allowed it to pass the bill through the National Assembly without a vote, sparked massive protests across France.
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The footage, which lasts for only 3 seconds, was shared on Twitter by a user with the following caption:
"President of France Emmanuel #Macron was attacked with an egg during a public appearance after the approval of the pension reform.
#ReformeDesRetraites #Muttersholtz #100jours #Selestat #France"
Click here to view an archive of the above tweet.
BOOM also found a longer video, showing a different angle of the exact same incident, being shared on Facebook with the same claim.
Click here to view the video.
News outlet Mirror Now also shared the video on a Facebook reels along with the same viral claim linking it to his first appearance after the approval of the pension reform bill.
Click here to view the reel, and here for an archive.
Fact-Check
BOOM performed a series of keyword searches to find recent instances of Macron being attacked during the French pension reform unrests, but were unable to find any recent reports on eggs being thrown at him.
However, we came across old reports of Macron being hit on the head by an egg in 2017, when he was running as a presidential candidate for the 2017 French elections.
According to a report by British outlet Express, Macron was hit by the egg on March 1, 2017, while he was visiting an agricultural fair in Paris. The article contained a video of the event, which matched one of the viral videos being shared recently that falsely linked it to the pension reforms protests.
We also found French media outlets Canal+ and Le Petit Journal sharing longer and clearer version ofthe same viral video. They were posted on March 1, 2017 with captions linking it to Macron's visit at the agricultural fair.
The same video was previously fact-check by BOOM in 2020, when it was shared online falsely linking it to the French president's remarks defending free speech following the death of Samuel Paty - a high school teacher who was decapitated by a radical Islamist. Read our fact-check here.
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