Footage of 2022 climate activists' protest in Paris falsely shared as people being dragged away for reading Namaz

Context
A video of motorists pulling people off the road is being widely shared on social media with a narrative that Muslim residents were dragged for reading Namaz in the middle of the street in Paris. In the widely shared video, people wearing glowing orange vests can be seen sitting in the middle of the road disrupting the movement of traffic. Later, a few individuals are seen hauling them away from the road. A Twitter user posted the video in May 2023 with a caption in Malayalam, which, when translated to English, read: ‘A beautiful sight of a group of people in Europe praying on the road and fighting the Islam virus.’ The same video and similar claims were also circulated on social media in December 2022.

In Fact
A reverse image search revealed that this video was shot in November 2022. Logically Facts found pictures resembling the visuals in the video shared from a Twitter account. Twitter account ‘Dernière Rénovation’ first shared the visuals on November 26, 2022. Dernière Rénovation translates to Last Renovation, and the account describes itself as a civil resistance campaign to protest climate change.

Additionally, Daily Express ran a story based on the same footage on December 2022. In its article concerning the video, the Daily Express stated, “Furious Parisian drivers brutally dragged climate activists off the road on the Levallois bridge in Levallois-Perret, Paris. The protesters had brought traffic to a standstill, prompting the ire of the drivers. The driver was quickly joined by other commuters who took the matter into their own hands.”

The report adds that the Dernière Rénovation had organized the protest in order to pressure the French government into ensuring better building insulation, which it said could significantly reduce carbon emissions in the nation.

There is no religious element to the widely shared video, which is originally from 2022. The video is of a protest organized by climate activists. 

The Verdict
This video does not show motorists dragging away people offering Namaz in the middle of the road. A reverse image search reveals that the video is of people evicting climate change activists for obstructing traffic on a street in Paris. This claim has therefore been marked false.