No, France has not banned visas and passports from all 57 Muslim countries

Context

A viral tweet claims that “France has banned visas and passports of people from all 57 Muslim countries in the world.” The tweet is accompanied by a photo of people holding a banner with the text “MOHAMMED NOT WELCOME." The tweet has nearly 12,000 views. 

However, the claim is false and the photo attached to the tweet is not from France.

In Fact

There is no such announcement claiming that passports from Muslim countries are banned on either the French government's official website or that of the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, and no credible news sources corroborate the claim. The French government's official website still includes sections that allow people from the Middle East and North Africa to apply for visas and passports.

Logically Facts contacted the French Embassy in India and the Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, France to ask if the French government took any such decision. Michele Ferrari, Head of the Press and Communication Section of the French Embassy in India, told us that “no such decision was taken by France.”

Logically Facts also found that the photo used in the tweet is not from France but from Belgium and was taken in 2016. The photo had a watermark of Getty Images on it, and a reverse image search led us to the original photograph on Getty Images, published on January 9, 2016. According to the description of the image, it was taken by photographer Nicolas Maeterlinck for the news agency AFP during “an anti-immigration protest by the Belgian branch of the German xenophobic 'Pegida' movement, in Antwerp” on January 9, 2016. 

The Verdict

The French government has not banned visas and passports of people from “all 57 Muslim countries.” The image included in the tweet is not from France but was taken in Belgium during an anti-immigration protest in 2016. Therefore, we have marked this claim false.