After a far-right rally in London drew up to 150,000 protesters on Sunday, a raft of social media posts claim to show similar demonstrations spreading across Europe.
The images are being misleadingly used as evidence that Europeans are increasingly embracing the same views as those voiced in the demonstration in London — particularly anti-migrant sentiment.
But Euronews’ verification and fact-checking team, EuroVerify, has identified several videos unrelated to any current protest movement being used to fuel those claims.
A drone video showing a long column of demonstrators carrying the Polish flag has been circulating widely since Monday, with claims it shows as many as a million people protesting against “migration” and the “leftist elite” in Poland.
But a simple reverse image search shows that the footage was taken in November 2023 and shows Poland’s independence day celebrations in Warsaw.
It is worth noting that several anti-migration rallies organised by the far-right Konfederacja (Confederation) were staged across an estimated 80 Polish towns and cities in July, sparked by two fatal stabbings in which the suspect was of a migrant background.
But such demonstrations have not attracted the same kind of turnout as seen in London, as some users suggest.
Similarly, a video showing a packed square in the Spanish city of Pamplona during the annual festivities of San Fermín, has also re-emerged with vague claims it shows the “reawakening of Europe” and its “Christian values.” The video in fact shows celebrations typical of the annual cultural event.
Another video clip from the city of Hamburg in northern Germany, which had already been circulating widely in August, has re-surfaced in recent days with claims it shows protesters shouting anti-migrant chants.
But the footage in fact shows a congregation of Hamburg football fans marching before a derby clash against FC St. Pauli on 29 August this year.
It is true that demonstrations which took place in the UK did bare ties to Europe, with speakers including France’s far-right firebrand Éric Zemmour, and Romania’s recent presidential run-off candidate George Simion.
The most high-profile proponents of the London rally, including Elon Musk, are also actively projecting their views onto European audiences.
Musk — who has recently endorsed far-right candidates ahead of elections in Germany and Romania — also shared an AI-generated image of the London protest which confusingly showed crowds flying the UK flag with a building resembling Paris’ Arc de Triomphe in the background.
Efforts to export UK flag-hoisting movement
London’s so-called Unite the Kingdom rally was organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, a far-right activist and agitator who previously founded the Islamophobic organisation the English Defence League (EDL).
The event, which according to some eye-witnesses and anti-hate crime bodies gave a platform for hate speech and conspiracies, attracted a bigger turnout than expected by authorities.
It came after a social media-fuelled movement saw a number of Union Jack and St George’s flags appear in English towns and villages in recent months.
The Labour-led UK government has encouraged the flying of the national flags as a show of patriotism. For others, the movement is inflaming tensions and polarisation at a time of heightened tensions over the issue of migration.
It has triggered online efforts to rally support for flag hoisting in other European countries, most notably in France.
EuroVerify found here has been a spike in online calls for the French flag to be raised across French cities and towns on social platforms in the past week, under the hashtags #OperationTricolore, #PorteTonDrapeau and #HisseTonDrapeau.
A French journalist for BFMTV has detected that the movement erupted online on September 1, when as many as 10,000 posts using the hashtag #OperationTricolore were published, compared to none at all the previous day.
It has since gained the support of far-right influencers, notably those considered close to far-right politician Éric Zemmour.
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