Video of riots after PSG win misrepresented as Ceuta migration rush
- Published on August 4, 2026 at 22:30
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
A mass rush of migrants crossing over from Morocco plunged Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta into turmoil in late July 2026, but a video claimed across social media to show those new arrivals flipping, kicking and throwing trash cans is unrelated. The footage dates to May and actually shows rioting in Toulouse, France after Paris Saint-Germain won the UEFA Champions League.
"Thousands of military-aged flooded into Europe and Ceuta," said Raven Harrison, a Republican congressional candidate seeking election in Florida, in an August 1, 2026 Instagram post. "They're ransacking stores, raiding homes, and terrorizing residents. Notice the lack of women and children?"
Another Facebook post said: "These 50,000 Moroccan Muslims... They're just looking for a better life."
Similar posts spread across Instagram, Facebook and other platforms such as X, including in Spanish.
The posts followed extraordinary scenes in which tens of thousands of people, mostly Moroccans, overwhelmed the Spanish enclave of Ceuta as they entered on foot or by swimming. Spain sent troops to bolster security as the deadly influx -- the territory's largest-ever mass crossing -- drove the European nation into an international crisis.
Officials said August 4 that 70,000 of the 72,000 migrants who reached Ceuta have returned to Morocco.
But the video of people racing through a street and toppling trash bins is unrelated -- and has been flipped horizontally from the original.
Reverse image searches surfaced earlier footage of the same moment shared May 31 in posts saying the destruction occurred in Toulouse, France following the Champions League final, in which Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) defeated Arsenal in a dramatic penalty shootout victory (archived here, here and here).
One of the posts featured in an article about the violence in Toulouse as people ransacked terraces, overturned garbage cans and ignited fires (archived here).
Similar disturbances swept Paris and other French cities. France said nearly 900 people were arrested in the riots.
AFP matched the storefront for the cosmetics company NYX and other elements of the pedestrian street to Google Street View imagery for Toulouse's Rue d'Alsace-Lorraine, near the intersection with Rue du Fourbastard.
Publicly available photos uploaded to Google Maps for the NYX site also show the same area, further corroborating the video's location.
Videos from the riots that followed PSG's victory have been repeatedly misrepresented online.
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