This tweet with a video purportedly showing a library in France on fire during the June 2023 riots is FALSE.

The tweet reads: “Marseille library on fire, french police chief said “these are not riots for police, it’s war”. if this is not jihad what is it, They will burn down your knowledge and education and livelihood. They have done this before and will do it till they establish Sharia #FrenchRiots.”

The claim comes in the wake of the June 2023 protests in France following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old teenager by a police officer. A 27 -year-old person was killed in Marseille during the riots.

A reverse image search on Yandex shows that the video is from the Philippines.

Images with similar features as the claim video were shared on a Twitter post on 22 May 2023, alongside Indonesian text that translates to: “#Photo A fire engulfed the Manila Central Post Office building in the Philippines, Monday (22/5/2023). Here’s a portrait of the condition!”

CNN also reported the incident with the headline, “Inferno tears through Manila’s historic Central Post Office.”

According to the article, “the fire started around 11:45 p.m. local time and the situation was raised to the highest fire alarm level just before 6 a.m on Monday before it was brought under control about an hour later, according to the Bureau of Fire Protection.”

An image with similar features to the video in the claim was also included in the article.

A keyword search on YouTube shows videos of the fire incident were shared by several media houses on 22 May 2023.

PesaCheck has looked into a video on Twitter purportedly of a library in France on fire during the June 2023 riots and finds it to be FALSE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Peris Gachahi and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visitpesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.