Social media posts claim a video shows a sniper on the roof of a building during protests in France in summer 2023. This is false; the clip predates the unrest, which stems from the fatal police shooting of a French teenager of Algerian and Moroccan descent.
"Snipers spotted on French rooftops. This is literally a civil war now in France," says a June 30, 2023 tweet.
The post includes a clip of a man on the roof of a multi-story building, aiming what appears to be a rifle at people below.
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The claim spread elsewhere on Twitter and Facebook, including in Austria.
The posts come amid protests in France over the fatal shooting of teenager Nahel M by a police officer during a June 27 traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Rioters have set cars ablaze, looted businesses and clashed with police across Europe.
Out-of-context photos and videos have spread widely in social media posts falsely claiming they show the unrest. The sniper footage is the latest example of that trend.
A reverse image search indicates the clip has been circulating online for more than a year.
"Sniper de la cité," says the caption of a French-language tweet published March 13, 2022 with the same footage, using the term referring to the troubled suburban neighborhoods known as cités.
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The video, which appears to stem from Snapchat, includes an additional clip geotagged to the neighborhood of Hautes Noues in Villiers-sur-Marne. Using geolocation techniques, AFP determined the exact location where the footage was shot in the eastern Paris suburb.
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The French-language caption in the video shared in 2022 mentions a carnival, suggesting the firearm shown in the footage is not a real rifle. HoaxEye, a Twitter account that debunks misinformation on social media, said in a July 1 post that the weapon appears to be an air gun.
AFP was unable to independently verify the source of the video.
