No, this photo doesn’t show a Muslim woman in France burning a French flag

Quang Pham
·2-min read

A photo of a woman wearing a headscarf burning a French flag has been widely circulating on social media, with these viral posts claiming that she is a Muslim woman living in France. It turns out, however, that the image is a still taken from a video filmed in October 2023 during a protest in Morocco.

If you only have a minute…

  • Social media users have been circulating a photo posted on June 14 said to show a Muslim woman in France burning a French flag.

  • However, it turns out that the scene actually took place in Morocco, not France. The photo was taken from a video filmed during a protest held in October 2023 in Tangiers, Morocco in front of the French consulate.

The fact check, in detail

Social media users have been expressing their “disgust” over a photo of a woman in a headscarf burning the French flag. The photo has garnered more than 80,000 views on TikTok since it was posted on June 14 and has also been circulated widely on Facebook. Those who shared the photo claimed that the scene took place in France. “Where is our poor France?” one post, in French, lamented. “Burning our flag is unacceptable.Then people are surprised when people vote for the RN,” reads the subtitle on a video encouraging people to vote for Jordan Bardella, the candidate for the far right National Rally (in French, RN or Rassemblement National), in the parliamentary elections that took place on June 30.

A video filmed in Morocco

The video was published in the “Shorts” section of TanjaNews’ YouTube channel on October 25. The title of the video explains that it shows "a French flag being burned in front of the consulate in Tangiers”.


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