A truckload of manure was dumped outside a McDonald’s restaurant in France in protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
This is false. The footage is from a protest by French farmers outside McDonald’s and Burger King branches over the amount of meat imported from outside France.
Multiple posts on social media falsely claim that a video clip of a truckload of manure dumped outside a branch of McDonald’s in France shows a protest against Israel amid the conflict with Hamas.
A video circulating on platforms including Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram shows a red tipper truck dumping a large pile of steaming manure in the forecourt of a McDonald’s restaurant.
One Facebook post states: “Protests have taken place in France by dumping animal dung in front of a McDonald's branch supporting Israel.”
But the footage is unrelated to the conflict in the Middle East. The manure was dumped as part of a protest by French farmers against the fast food outlets McDonald’s and Burger King over claims that the chains do not source enough meat from within France.
The protest took place on 24 November at Vesoul, in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté located in eastern France, according to a statement released on social media by the Haute-Saône branch of the Departmental Federation of Farmers’ Unions.
The protest is described as “Union action of the farmers of Haute-Saône against Mac Donald's and Burger King in Vesoul” [sic: translation from French] and the union post includes multiple photographs of the protest. More video footage of the protest from 24 November has also been shared by news outlets online.
Yannick Augrandenis, an associate at the communications consultancy representing McDonald’s France, told Reuters that the video shows the farmers’ protest on 24 November.
He also included a statement that said 75% of McDonald’s France’s raw agricultural materials were sourced domestically in 2022, from 29,400 French farms and livestock holdings.
The clip which is now being claimed to show a protest relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict appears to originate from a French X account, where it was first shared on 24 November.
The translation of the French caption alongside the video states: “Farmers dump tons of manure in front of Mac Donald and the Burger King in Vesoul to denounce the origin of meat in fast food. (Haute-Saône posters).”
Full Fact has seen lots of misinformation relating to recent events in Israel and Gaza, including a large number of misleading images and videos. You can read our guide on how to fact check misleading videos relating to the conflict and find more of our work countering false claims on the subject here.
Image courtesy of Albert Bridge
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 false because the footage is not of a protest against Israel but by French farmers about the use of imported meat.
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