Original article (in BCS) was published on 15/8/2024; Author: Marija Manojlović
A video and footage are shared on social networks that allegedly show French President Emmanuel Macron’s kiss with another man. The video was created using artificial intelligence.
On August 8, 2024, a photo gallery was posted on Facebook featuring two frames taken from the same footage: in one frame, an unknown man is holding French President Emmanuel Macron by the wrist, and in the other, they are exchanging a kiss. The photos are accompanied by a description that states the following:
Knock, knock, who is this president of the only EU nuclear power and the host of the morbid Olympic Games in Paris?
Nothing is accidental, as a minor he was in a relationship with an adult man who turned into a “woman”, and today that person is his wife.
A photo of the kiss was posted on social network X on August 9, 2024, along with two other photos of the French president and several men. The photos were published with a description stating that the photos of Macron “having an orgy on a boat with men” just “appeared”. In response to this post, one social media user X shared a five-second clip showing the alleged kiss (archived).
The video and footage of Macron allegedly kissing another man were also shared on other accounts on Facebook (1, 2), Threads and on the X platform.
What are the facts?
The video of the kiss of the French president is a “deepfake”, that is, it was generated by artificial intelligence. The video and the frames taken from it were viral outside our speaking area. They have already been dealt with by foreign and regional fact-checking platforms Logically Facts, Les Observateurs, Teyit, Myth Detector, Aao Fatos, Montenegrin Raskrinkavanje, Faktograf and FakeNews Tragac.
These platforms pointed to several details that suggest the video was generated by artificial intelligence.
The video (archived) begins with a shot of a man holding the French president by the wrist, then releasing his hand and hugging him. By carefully watching the video, it is possible to see that at one point, although the man’s hand in the video changed position (it was lowered), the hand remained on Macron’s wrist.
Another detail indicates that it is a video generated by artificial intelligence – unnatural movements on Macron’s stomach in most of the video.
At one point, as the man approaches Macron to kiss him, the outline of the French president’s lips disappears even though they were clearly visible before.
It appears that the material used to generate the footage was an actual photo taken during Macron’s vacation. On July 29, Macron traveled with his wife to Fort de Bregancon, the summer residence of the French president. French tabloid Voici published vacation photos of Macron with several men in their edition from August 2.
In their analysis, Logically Fact published a photo of the cover, as well as photos from the text. One of them shows a man holding the French president by the wrist. It is a photo that actually corresponds to the frame at the beginning of the kiss shot.
These photos were then shared on social networks and published by other media.
Les Observateurs also states that this photo probably served as the basis for making the kiss shot.
AI can indeed generate an animated video from a simple photo. Using online artificial intelligence, the editors of Les Observateurs managed to make a video of a kiss from a photo.
The Macron couple is a frequent target of rumors regarding their gender and sexual orientation. During the 2017 presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron denied rumors that he was gay, which were circulating during that period. Raskrinkavanje previously reported on false claims that his wife, Brigitte Macron, was born a man.
Given the above, we assess the first publication of the video and footage showing the kiss of the French president with another man, without mentioning that these are not authentic photos, as fake news. We evaluate other such posts as the distribution of fake news. We also give the same rating to the publications claiming that Brigitte Macron was born a man.
