A morphed image of French President Emmanuel Macron being covered with garlands at a recent meet in French Polynesia is doing the rounds on social media. The image shows Macron being greeted by dignitaries and standing wearing a pile of garlands on what appears to be a tarmac of the airport.
According to reports, Macron was on his first trip to French Polynesia, a sprawling country of more than 100 islands located midway between Mexico and Australia. He was greeted with flower garlands and Tahitian dancers on the tarmac during a welcoming ceremony at Faa'a international airport on July 24, 2021. During his first official trip to the territory, Macron acknowledged France's "debt" to French Polynesia over nuclear tests conducted in the South Pacific territory between 1966 and 1996.
A journalist Noga Tarnopolsky tweeted the morphed image with the caption, "President Macron is turned into a human wreath during his official welcome to French Polynesia."
The same image was also shared by news agency ANI's national bureau chief Naveen Kapoor. Kapoor retweeted a Twitter post with the morphed photograph and wrote, 'Who says only Indian politicians like flowers?' Below is a screenshot of the same. Click here for an archive of the retweet.
Click here, here and here to see the archives of such posts.
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Fact Check
BOOM did a keyword search related to Emmanuel Macron's first official trip to French Polynesia and found a Euronews video report on YouTube uploaded on July 25, 2021. The video shows visuals of Macron arriving at the airport and being greeted by flowers as part of the welcoming ceremony.
We checked the video thoroughly and found a similar frame showing Macron covered in flower garlands at 54 second mark in the video. The screengrab however doesn't show Macron being covered with several garlands, as it is shown in the viral image.
Here is a screen-to-screen comparison between the viral image and the screen grab from the news bulletin.
While this image has been morphed, BOOM found a video clip uploaded by The Sun on July 28, where Macron can be seen wearing several garlands as he is greeted in an event in French Polynesia.
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