Unrelated clips misrepresented as Nanjing massacre memorial in France
- Published on July 30, 2026 at 10:47
- 5 min read
- By Sammy HEUNG, AFP Hong Kong
A memorial for victims of the historic Nanjing massacre in China was held in France in late June 2026, but a video compilation circulating widely in Chinese posts does not depict the event. The clips show unrelated public appearances by French President Emmanuel Macron, stitched with old visuals of gatherings commemorating D-Day and France's national day.
"In the scorching 38-degrees-Celsius heat, French citizens took to the streets to mourn the victims of the Nanjing massacre," a simplified Chinese X post published on July 22 reads in part.
The attached video features clips of Macron greeting people on the street, a march and what appears to be a remembrance event.
The Mandarin voiceover says the vigil was held on June 27, falsely adding it was the first overseas memorial to commemorate the Nanjing massacre.
During a period of brutal Japanese occupation of parts of China during World War II, Japanese troops carried out mass murder, rape and looting in the then-Chinese capital for about six weeks from the end of 1937 (archived link). Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people were killed.
China holds annual memorials on December 13 each year to mark the day Japanese troops captured Nanjing (archived link). A similar event was held in New York in 2017, according to state outlet China Daily (archived link).
Similar posts were shared on TikTok, Facebook, Threads and Weibo after French group Echoes of the World held a memorial march honouring the victims of the massacre on June 27 in Paris (archived link). It said the event drew around a hundred people.
But visuals of the parade published by the group and Chinese state outlets do not match the circulating footage, which in fact comprises unrelated clips (archived here, here and here).
Misused Macron videos
A reverse image search of keyframes -- followed by keyword searches -- found Macron's clip interacting with people corresponds to a picture published on his official Facebook page on February 3, 2022 (archived link).
The post gives details of the French president's visit to the Hauts-de-France in northern France to pay tribute to miners killed in an accident in 1974.
Similar scenes are shown in a video published on his YouTube channel in May 2022 to mark Macron's five years in office (archived link).
Another clip of Macron matches an image in an October 2020 article about him visiting a storm-ravaged village in Roya Valley, France (archived link).
The same visual can also be seen in the YouTube video recapping his five years in power (archived link).
D-Day anniversary
The clip depicting children in formal attire standing in front of two large screens and the flags of the United States and France can be traced to a June 6, 2024 report from French channel CNews (archived link).
It says the video was filmed on the same day during a ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
A closer look at the clip found "Ferdinand Malardé" written on one of the screens.
A farewell letter written by Malardé, a resistance fighter from Morbihan, to his parents, a day before he was arrested and executed for "acts of resistance", was read during the event, according to CNews.
An AFP livestream of the event also shows the man reading the letter and the screen showing Malardé at the 1:11:03 mark.
Bastille Day
Meanwhile, a reverse search of the clip of the French flag being unfurled surfaced a similar YouTube video from Bastille Day in 2022 (archived link).
A keyword search on YouTube found a video published by the defence and veteran affairs ministry on July 14, 2022 containing the same scenes (archived here, here, and here).
AFP also published a photo showing the same flag and formation on the country's national day.
Immortal Regiment march
AFP is not able to find the original version of the clip showing people walking on the street holding black and white photos.
However, it corresponds to pictures and videos online about Immortal Regiment rallies -- an annual parade mainly held in Russia which involves people carrying photos of veterans or family members who died in World War II (archived here, here and here).
The top right corner of the clip also shows the logo of GTRK, a local television station in South Ossetia, a breakaway region that Moscow recognises as independent while recognised as Georgian territory by most of the world (archived link).
The station has published videos of the annual march and other parades in the capital Tskhinvali, showing the same pedestrian sign, street lamp and light pole in the falsely shared clip (archived here, here and here).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to the Nanjing massacre.
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