A video of an Australian parking lot fire is being misrepresented as a protest in Marseille #video #Australian #parking #lot #fire #misrepresented #protest #Marseille

CLAIM: A video shows a parking lot of cars that was set on fire by protesters in Marseille, France.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video shows a fire at an auction yard in Perth, Australia, in April.

THE FACTS: The dramatic video showing dozens of cars going up in flames spread on social media Monday, following six nights of violence in France after the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old in suburban Paris.

Police officers face protesters on Concorde square during a protest in Paris, France, Friday, June 30, 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron urged parents Friday to keep teenagers at home and proposed restrictions on social media to quell rioting spreading across France over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

CLAIM: France’s Interior Ministry and national police published a press release announcing that the country is restricting internet access in certain areas amid ongoing unrest.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False.

CLAIM: A video shows protesters in France storming and looting a Louis Vuitton store in 2023.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False.

A voter drops off a ballot in a drop box in Portland, Ore., on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. Registered voters in Oregon receive their ballots by mail and have until Election Day to drop them in a ballot box or mail them back. Oregon has conducted its elections by mail for more than 20 years, but registered voters can also vote in person at their county elections office on Election Day. (AP Photo/Claire Rush)

CLAIM: Oregon has more registered voters than state residents.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The population of Oregon is more than 4 million, according to the most recent U.S.

The footage shows a large parking lot with vehicles stacked three levels high on racks. One section of the yard is completely engulfed in flames, and loud pops can be heard as sparks erupt from cars on the top level.

“Marseille: Rioters set fire to a parking lot filled with brand new vehicles,” read one tweet shared hundreds of times. “Parking lot with new cars on fire in Marseille as protests in France continue,” said the caption on a Facebook video of the footage.

While there is real footage of cars set ablaze during the recent protests, this video was taken several months earlier and on the other side of the planet.

A reverse image search shows the footage matches a video posted to Twitter on April 28 of a fire at a lot owned by Pickles, an Australian auction house.

Pickles confirmed in a statement at the time that a fire had broken out that day at a storage yard housing salvage vehicles in Bibra Lake, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Kelly Drew, a spokesperson for Pickles, said in an email Monday that the video circulating on social media this week looks like the same fire, pointing to an article in the West Australian newspaper that showed similar footage from a different angle.

Footage of the conflagration taken by the same Twitter user who posted the original clip was shared by several other local news outlets at the time. The footage also matches imagery on Google Maps of the lot.

One other clue gives away the video’s real location: People can be heard speaking in Australian accents in the background.

Social media users have also shared footage from a 2020 protest in Portland, Oregon and an image from a 2022 Netflix movie, falsely claiming they depict scenes from the unrest in France.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

#video #Australian #parking #lot #fire #misrepresented #protest #Marseille

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