Is a photo showing French President Emmanuel Macron kissing a man authentic? No, that's not true: The photo in this post was digitally altered to change the original image and make it appear like Macron was intimate with another man. In public media accounts, the unedited image displayed Macron play-fighting with his bodyguard while on vacation -- not kissing him.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on the X, formerly known as Twitter, platform on August 8, 2024. Above images of Macron appearing to kiss a man on what appears to be a boat, the caption of the post -- with the French flag, rainbow flag, red siren alert, and vomiting face emojis -- opened:
BREAKING: New photos appear to show French President Emmanuel Macron kissing a man and being fruity as hell
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Aug 9 20:39:30 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories searched using keywords on Google News, which is visible here, and found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim.
Almost a week before the doctored images appeared, an August 2, 2024, Instagram post (archived here) on the verified account of "Legend Media," a self-described French media/news company, displayed what appeared to be an authentic and unedited photo of Macron play-fighting with his bodyguard on what appears to be a boat. Instead of Macron kissing his bodyguard, the photo shows Macron's bodyguard holding on tightly to Macron's wrist.
The caption of this post, translated from French to English using Google Translate, reads:
Vacation time for Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron, who are again spending their summer holidays at Fort de Brégançon, the summer residence of the French heads of state. The presidential couple also remodeled the place between 2018 and 2023.
Brigette Macron is the French president's wife. She is not shown in this photo.
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Fri Aug 9 21:06:30 2024 UTC)
An August 3, 2024, "Délits d'Opinion" article in English titled, "Emmanuel Macron shirtless and playing fight on vacation: the photos that ignite social networks," reported that Macron is on vacation and "photos show the President shirtless, smiling, and playing on a boat with his bodyguards."
An August 5, 2024, X platform post (archived here) displays a video of what appears to be Macron's bodyguard placing an arm around Macron's shoulder and then proceeding to kiss Macron. However, the caption confirms the photo was created with AI, as it reads, translated from French to English using Google Translate:
Maybe with the full video, fake news drinkers will understand that it is a video generated by Artificial Intelligence. 1st clue, Macron's belly. 2024, the internet is not easy for everyone.
In addition, Lead Stories ran the video through True Media, an AI detection tool, which found substantial evidence that it was created using AI.
Here are the findings of True Media:
(Source: True Media screenshot taken on Mon Aug 12 16:10:31 2024 UTC)
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Emmanuel Macron can be read here.
