What was claimed
A video shows Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni saying: "We won’t allow Sharia law to be implemented in Italy. I’m Giorgia Meloni. I’m Christian. I’m a daughter of Italy.”
Our verdict
The video is fake. It’s a deepfake created with AI from a still image of Giorgia Meloni at a press conference in January, where no mention of Sharia law was made.
A video which appears to show Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni saying “we won’t allow Sharia law to be implemented in Italy” has been circulating online. But it’s a deepfake.
The ten-second clip, which has gained thousands of likes on X and has also been shared on Facebook, depicts Ms Meloni speaking in English at a podium.
In the footage she appears to say: “We won’t allow Sharia law to be implemented in Italy. I’m Giorgia Meloni. I’m Christian. I’m a daughter of Italy.”
But this video isn’t genuine, and Ms Meloni didn’t say these comments. The footage has been altered with artificial intelligence (AI).
Join 74,000 newsletter subscribers who trust us to check the facts
Sign up to get weekly updates on politics, immigration, health and more.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.
Using reverse image search tools, we traced the first frame of the clip to a photograph, published by the European Pressphoto Agency, with a description stating it was taken at a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Rome in January this year.
We analysed a full recording of the press conference, which took place following an intergovernmental summit between Italy and Germany, and identified a point where Ms Meloni’s posture and expression matches that in the image.
But during this exchange, Mr Merz is speaking, rather than Ms Meloni as the viral video makes out.
Having reviewed the footage, at no point during the press conference does Ms Meloni speak in English, and we found no reference to ‘Sharia’ in YouTube’s transcript of the comments made by both leaders.
Additionally, Ms Meloni’s voice in the video being shared appears different from genuine footage of her speaking English. The video also contains an overlaid ‘Grok’ watermark—the AI chatbot integrated with X—in the right-hand corner.
This video is a deepfake created using AI, most likely from the still image of Ms Meloni. Other clues that support this include her earrings being a different shape in the video, than in the real footage.
However, genuine footage of Ms Meloni discussing Sharia law and saying she believed there was a problem of “compatibility” between a “certain interpretation” of Islamic culture and the “rights and values of our civilisation”, does exist.
We have previously debunked other deepfake videos of politicians, including Sir Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage, US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron.
It’s important to consider whether what you see on social media comes from a verifiable and trustworthy source before sharing. Our Full Fact toolkit and guides to spotting AI-generated images and videos can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because this isn’t genuine footage of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but a deepfake video.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Fact checking claims made by politicians, public figures and viral online content can give you the full picture backed by the evidence.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.