Russian efforts to discredit Europe because of its aid to Ukraine don’t stop. This time, after President of France Emmanuel Macron talked about Ukraine and European security live, pro-Russian channels spread the fake that he doesn’t care about Ukraine so much that he presented the map of Ukraine upside down. Let’s see how it was constructed.
What happened
Macron had a live Q&A session on social media Instagram (archive), X (archive), and YouTube (archive) when he responded to the questions about Ukraine and European security. During the live broadcast, he demonstrated on the map what part of Ukrainian territory Russia has occupied since 2014.
After that, pro-Russian sources shared the information that seemingly during the demonstration of the map of Ukraine, Macron was “disrespectfully holding it upside down” to “admit the West’s defeat.”
Pro-Russian Telegram channels wrote about that, in particular head of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs Mariya Zaharova (archive), “Военное обозрение” (“Military review,” archive), “Медведь” (“Bear,” archive) and media TASS(archive), RIA Novosti (archive), Rambler (archive), and others.
In Telegram, the authors wrote, “President of France Macron tells the history of conflict in Ukraine pointing at [everything] on the map. [But], he’s holding it upside down. And no one tells him to fix it — not an operator, not a director, not a press office employee. Perhaps Ukraine is so important to all that even the map doesn’t have to be turned [the right way.]”
Analysis
On all videos and pictures attached to the author’s posts, the map of Ukraine demonstrated by Macron is not “upside down,” it’s mirrored — like the photos are when people are taking selfies.
Most of the authors referred to the post by Mariya Zaharova, who, on February 21, wrote (archive) about the live transmission of President of France Macron: “Obviously, by demonstrating an upside-down map of Ukraine, Macron wants to explain that their plan to “bring strategic defeat to Russia” was realized “upside down,” and everything is turned on his head. Sick head.”
She attached a fragment from a live video of President Macron that was transmitted by the BFMTV channel.
But after finding live video on the BFMTV website (archive), we found out that the live video looked like that only for the first two minutes. Then, the settings and placement of objects, in particular, flags and pictures, are displayed correctly.
“Basically, the President of the Republic answers the questions of the internet users by shooting himself to the mobile phone installed in front of them. In such a way, the selfie function is activated on the phone, which causes a mirror effect on the screen,” writes TF1.
The same “mirror effect” can be seen on the YouTube platform (archive) and on X (archive). Live broadcast was transmitted there from the official accounts of President Macron.
The fact that the picture is mirrored is also confirmed by the fact that, on this live broadcast, the wedding ring Emmanuel Macron’s left hand and the badge he’s usually wearing on the left side of his jacket, we see on the right side of the frame.
So, information about President of France Emmanuel Macron holding the map of Ukraine upside down on a live broadcast because he doesn’t respect the country is false.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Vasylyna Haviak
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