A video showing street vendors selling designer bags and football shirts has been shared with false claims that it shows people selling items looted during the recent unrest in France.
The video was actually filmed on Gran Vía, a street in Madrid, Spain.
The video has been shared hundreds of times on X, Facebook and Instagram, wrongly connecting the scene to the looting which took place earlier this month in several cities across France.
About 12 seconds into the video we can see a distinctive red diamond sign for the Gran Vía metro station in Madrid. A neon green pharmacy sign can also be seen in the background with the Spanish word “Farmacia” written on it, helping us to geolocate the video to nearby Farmacia López Vicente on Gran Vía in Madrid. The word “Madrid” can also be seen on one of the buses on the street.
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The video was online before the looting
There have been reports of attempts to resell recently looted items on online platforms like Vinted. But this video has been online since at least 29 September, before large-scale protests in France on 17 October escalated to include widespread looting.
It can be hard to tell authentic footage from videos taken out of context during fast-moving events—our misinformation toolkit can help.
