Macron responds to ‘disinformation’ spread by viral video

French President Emmanuel Macron said France’s enemies were behind a “disinformation” campaign that involved a video of him.

While on a train to Kyiv, Ukraine, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a video showed Macron grabbing something from a table and stashing it in his hand. Macron’s office posted screenshots of the video with a close-up on the object, saying it was “a tissue. For blowing your nose.”

Another photo included Macron smiling and shaking hands with the world leaders. It was captioned, “This is European Unity. To build peace.”

“When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs,” the statement from Macron’s office said. “This fake news is being spread by France’s enemies, both abroad and at home. We must remain vigilant against manipulation.”

The video’s international nature resulted in some English posts receiving a Community Note in a foreign language, such as Portuguese. While X worked to correct the notes, users took it upon themselves to debunk the story.

“This is the media landscape now: the right spits out pure nonsense—Biden has dementia, Macron’s on coke, Hillary’s a murderer—and suddenly it’s on us to disprove it,” Chris Jackson, former Lawrence County Commissioner in Tennessee, said on X. “Absurdity dominates the headlines while real issues get buried. That’s not journalism. That’s a circus.”

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“It’s unbelievable how thousands of accounts are accusing Macron and Merz of doing cocaine on the train back from Kyiv — when all the video shows is them clearing a table of a stirrer and a tissue before the media began taking photos,” economics professor Roman Sheremeta said on X. “People seem to have zero ability to think critically, or even just watch with their own eyes. Truly unbelievable.”

Just weeks ago, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency has been carrying out attacks against French interests since at least 2015. This time, Macron did not name the alleged enemy behind the social media campaign.