No evidence that weapons sent to Ukraine ended up in France during recent civil unrest

Context

On June 27, police fatally shot a teenager in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre. This event triggered widespread protests nationwide, leading to rioting in several French cities and towns.

Since the civil unrest unfolding across France has generated widespread news coverage, a screenshot designed to resemble a headline from a news article was widely circulated on Twitter and Facebook. The text in the image reads, “French Police are Fired Upon With American Rifles that May Have Come From Ukraine.” The screenshot displays an image of a sniper rifle and does not contain any further details concerning its claim. 

In the days since this image surfaced on social media, it has been shared widely by pro-Russian accounts critical of Western support for Ukraine. Logically Facts has concluded that the headline is a fabrication. 

In Fact

The image in question is not a screenshot of a news article. Logically Facts searched for the text it contains in English, Ukrainian, Russian, and French. None of these searches returned any results that resemble the now-viral image. It can be concluded that no such article exists online, and the image is likely a fabrication. 

Logically Facts also used a reverse image search to determine where the photograph of the sniper rifle originated. As previously reported by the fact-checking outlet Open, the earliest instance of it was found attached to coverage of a shooting competition in 2012. 

Logically Facts searched coverage of weapons being diverted from Ukraine to France. No reputable outlets have reported that this has occurred, nor is there any publicly available evidence supporting this claim. 

The Verdict

There is no evidence weapons from Ukraine were used to target French police during recent civil unrest. The image from which this claim derived appears to have been created to falsely misrepresent it as a screenshot of news coverage. This claim has therefore been marked as false.