French fighter jets did not paint the sky in the colors of the Russian flag during Olympic ceremony

Context

As is tradition, the Olympic flame has arrived in the host country for this summer's games. It reached the French city of Marseille on May 8, 2024. 

The arrival of the flame - lit in the ancient Greek city of Olympia on April 16 - was celebrated with theatrics. Fireworks exploded, and French Air Force fighters tore through the sky, spraying smoke in the colours of the Tricolore.

However, according to users on social media, the fighter planes didn't get the color combination correct. Instead of painting the sky in the blue, white, and red of the French flag, the jets left a trail of white, blue, and red, the combination found in the flag of the Russian Federation, the users claimed. The claims were shared alongside a video in which jets did seem to leave a white-blue-red pattern in the sky above Marseille. 

However, this is just an optical illusion because of the angle from which the video was filmed. Plenty of footage from the ceremony shows the fighters getting the combinations right, and closer inspection of the video does show the blue smoke to be on the outside of the white smoke and not between the white and the red. 

In fact

On the day of the Olympic Torch's arrival in France, the Olympics uploaded a video to their official YouTube account with highlights from the ceremony. About 19 minutes into the video, footage of the flyover appears: eight planes in V-formation, leaving blue, white and red smoke, accompanied by a commentator saying, "Now, the colors of the French Tricolore."

On the same day, French President Emmanuel Macron posted a video on X with highlights from the day that included the French Tricolore flyover. Similar footage was shared by the official X account of the 2024 Paris games. Images of the flyover were also included in news reports. 

Official footage on social media shows the smoke in the order of the French Tricolore. (Source: X/YouTube/Screenshots)

A closer look at the video shared with the Russian flag claims on social media shows that the blue smoke is on the outside of the white smoke, not between the red and the white. 

The blue smoke is on the outside of the white, not between the red and the white. (Source: X/Screenshot)

The camera is closest to the jets releasing the blue smoke, and the angle from which it was filmed makes the blue smoke appear as if it were between the red and the white. 

The color combination of the Tricolore changes with the perspective from which it is viewed. 

Verdict

The video is filmed from an angle that makes the colors of the French flag appear in the order of the Russian flag. Official footage from the ceremony shows the jets did paint the colors of the French Tricolore in the correct order. Therefore, we have marked this claim as misleading.