[Anchor]

Amid escalating protests in France, fake news and fabricated information inciting xenophobia are running rampant. The Fact Check team looked into the truth behind these claims, alongside French media.

Reporter Lee Gyeong-won has the details.

[Reporter]

A woman presumed to be a shop owner holds a stick to block protesters, while surrounding men say something to stop her.

This video, uploaded to social media two weeks ago, spread rapidly with claims that protesters held back their attacks because the shop owner was fellow Muslim, and that not a single Muslim-owned shop was targeted. The claims even made their way to South Korea.

It surpassed 12 million views.

The SBS Fact Check team asked the Seoul bureau of Le Figaro, a major French daily, to verify what was actually being said. The men's remarks were translated as follows:

[You are a woman. You are a woman and you are alone. Everyone, go back. Please, go back.]

The translation showed they were merely telling others to stop the attack because the woman was alone, and no references related to Muslims were found.

The shop owner appeared to be wearing a hijab at first glance, but upon closer inspection, she had long black hair.

[mon frère! mon frère!]

Claims were also shared that this expression meant Muslim in French, but it turned out to be a term men use to address each other, similar to bro in English.

The Palestinian flag atop the Eiffel Tower was found to be an AI-generated video, and another widely circulated video, purported to be an immigrant protest, was actually confirmed to show football fans celebrating Paris Saint-Germain's UEFA Champions League victory last May.

The French daily Le Monde reported that such fake videos push the demands of protesters into the background and force the situation to be interpreted through the lens of identity issues such as race and religion.

(Video Editing: Choi Hye-young, Design: Cho Su-in, VJ: Kim Jun-ho)