France's student protests have sparked a wave of misleading content online. A viral TikTok falsely claimed the French army had deployed an armoured vehicle against protesters, when it was actually returning to a nearby military base. Other posts recycle 2023 footage of retirement protests as current events, while an AI-generated image was falsely presented as showing a police officer being attacked. Vedika Bahl examines how old, out-of-context and AI-generated content is fuelling misinformation.
France's student protests continued on Thursday, blockading schools and marching through cities across the country against underfunding, poor school conditions and a lack of teachers. The demonstrations have been violent in places, with hundreds of students, law enforcement officers and teachers injured. The violence has triggered discourse surrounding some protesters' use of violence, as well as accusations of heavy-handed riot police, as rights groups accuse them of using excessive force against children.
