What was claimed
An image shows a police officer in France pepper spraying a woman recently.
Our verdict
It was actually taken in Washington state in 2007.
This photo does not show a French police officer pepper spraying a protester
30 April 2019
An image supposedly showing a French police officer pepper spraying a woman has been shared over 3,000 times.
But the image is actually from a 2007 anti-war protest at Port of Olympia, Washington.
The picture has appeared across the internet since then but was notably misused recently in relation to France’s yellow vest protests.
It can be noted that French police uniforms are usually dark blue, when the uniform in the photo is black.
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 as it incorrectly states that the photo is from France and taken this year.