00:00Are French authorities removing the EU flag from public buildings in an act of defiance against Brussels?
00:10French citizens are tearing down the EU flag from town halls and schools to reclaim their country from Brussels.
00:17That's according to a viral post on X that has fueled a long-running anti-EU narrative depicting the bloc
00:22as tyrannical.
00:23The post shows a video next to a picture of European Commission President Ertula von der Leyen
00:28in which we see a man taking down an EU flag that had been flying alongside the French and Occitan
00:34flags.
00:34A reverse image search from the video takes us to the ex-account of Christophe Barthez,
00:39the newly elected mayor of Carcassonne and a member of the far-right National Rally Party,
00:44who posted the clip to his own profile on 29 March.
00:48So, the video is authentic and reflects Barthez's Eurosceptic views,
00:52but it's misleading to suggest that an anti-EU flag wave has swept through France.
00:56French response, an ex-account run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tackling disinformation,
01:02responded to the viral post saying,
01:04one out of 34,874 municipalities is hardly France.
01:10The story has also prompted misleading claims about whether flying European flags
01:14from public buildings in France is legally required.
01:17Some social media users argue a 2019 law forces town halls and communes
01:22with more than 1,500 inhabitants to fly the French and European flags,
01:27as well as display France's national motto and a portrait of the President.
01:31However, there's currently no French law requiring town halls to display the European flag.
01:36A bill to do so was voted through by the National Assembly in 2023,
01:40but the Senate hasn't followed suit, leaving it stuck in Parliament.
01:43But there is a government directive that the EU flag must be flown on Europe Day on the 9th of
01:49May,
01:49and a law that says schools do have to fly it all the time.
01:54CREDITS
01:55Is.
01:55Is.
01:55Are.
01:57Being.
01:57Dziękuje za uwagę.
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