After the Olympic opening ceremony that took place in Paris on July 26, many social media users posted false claims about how people reacted to the event, including posting a video showing people allegedly protesting the ceremony in Paris and fake screenshots of social media posts by politicians commenting on the ceremony.
The ceremony has sparked controversy over some of its performances, including a tableau that showed drag queens, among other performers, gathered on one side along a platform later used as a stage. Many social media users criticized the tableau, saying it resembled Leonardo da Vinci’s "Last Supper" painting and it was insulting to their Christian beliefs. Some social media users posted claims related to the alleged reaction to that tableau during the Olympic opening ceremony.
Here's a fact check on some of his claims.
Old video recycled as Paris protest
Two days after the opening ceremony, a on X, formerly known as Twitter, claimed to show "Thousands of Christians in France gathered together in a breathtaking display of faith and unity." The video shows a large group of people gathered at night carrying candles and singing a hymn.
While that post didn't mention the Olympics or give a date for the event, the video was widely by and on by users who made a direct link to the Olympics and who implied the footage was recent.
Rating: False
An image search of keyframes of the video show it is an old video from unrelated event that took place almost two years before the Olympic opening ceremony.
The 22-second video was posted first on the official X account of on Aug. 14, 2022, showing a large group of Catholic Christians celebrating the Assumption of Mary in Lourdes, a French town about 800 kilometres southwest of Paris.
"Beautiful and happy Feast of the Assumption to all," said an English translation of the French text in the post.
The same footage was also posted on Facebook on Aug. 17, 2022 by a Christian religious news page called
"Catholic faithful singing Ave Maria at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary," the post reads.
Misleading Macron post
A shared what appeared to be a screenshot of an X post by French President Emmanuel Macron, with text in English saying, "This is France!" Beneath the text is a screenshot of a scene from the Olympic opening ceremony showing performers gathered on one side of a platform, with French DJ Barbara Butch at its centre, with an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s "Last Supper" painting underneath. The screenshot appears to be taken from a CBC broadcast of the ceremony, as indicated by the CBC logo in the upper right corner of the image.
"Absolutely disgusting," the text of the post reads.
Rating: Misleading
President Macron did, indeed, on X just after the end of the opening ceremony, saying, "This is France!" However, the post didn't include any photos.
, but he didn't post screenshots from the CBC television broadcast of the controversial scene.
If the images were a part of Macron's post, they would have appeared above the date, time and view count, instead of below those details as shown in the screenshot.
Thomas Jolly, artistic director of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, said in interviews after the performance that Leonardo da Vinci’s "Last Supper" was not the inspiration for that tableau.
The famous Renaissance painting, created between 1494 and 1498, depicts Jesus’s last meal with the 12 apostles and has been numerous times.
“That wasn’t my inspiration,” Jolly said in an with French news broadcast television and radio network BFM TV.
the scene portrayed "a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus the Olympics,” including a section with Greek god of wine and festivities, Dionysus.
Fake Harris post
On July 27, several social media users shared a that appears to show an X post by United States Vice-President Kamala Harris congratulating the director of the Olympic opening ceremony on his work. There is no date and time visible in the screenshot and no link to the post is provided.
"What an impressive show by all of these beautiful and diverse people at the Opening Ceremony of The Olympics!" the image reads.
"Director Thomas Jolly did an incredible job, and made France look great! America, this is what we need to strive towards!"
The supposed X post includes three screenshots featuring drag queens and a depiction the Greek god Dionysus from the broadcast of the opening ceremony.
Rating: Fabricated image
A search on July 29 of Harris's personal X account, , and the official account of the United States vice-president, , did not bring up the post that appears in the screenshot shared by other X users.
A keyword search of the @KamalaHarris account shows it last on Dec. 7, 2020. A similar search of @VP account shows it last posted using the word , before the opening ceremonies.
One of the images in the fake post appears to be taken from a broadcast by , with a logo featuring a red dot and the number "2" just visible in the upper-right corner. NBC is the official broadcast partner in the United States for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
High-profile politicians such as Harris and Macron are very unlikely to post screenshots of an event as they have large public relations teams and budgets that allow them access to high-quality images and videos from professional photographers.
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Macron claim
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Harris claim
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