2018 image is falsely shared as Turkey President refusing to shake hands with Macron - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 12, 2020
A post with an image showing France President Emmanuel Macron offering a handshake to Turkey President Erdogan is being widely shared on social media platforms with the claim that Erdogan refused to shake hands with Macron. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Turkey’s President refused to shake hands with France President Macron.
Fact: The image was actually clicked during United Nations General Assembly session in New York back in 2018. Both the leaders,  Macron and Erdogan indeed shook hands during their meet at the session. Images showing handshake of these leaders was also shared by official Twitter handle of the Turkey government. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Reverse image search of the photo in the post led us to a similar image on Getty Images, a supplier of stock images. According to the description of this image, the image was clicked at the United Nations General Assembly session in New York on 25 September 2018 when French President Macron met his Turkish counterpart. The photograph was credited to ‘LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images’.
Further search on Getty Images led us to another image which shows Macron and Erdogan shaking hands, this image has the same description and photo credits as the image above. With this, we can infer that both the images are clicked during the same meet.
Taking a cue from these images,  Google search with relevant keywords led us to a 26 September 2018 tweet by Directorate of Communications, Turkey which shared the image of Erdogan shaking hands with Macron. According to the tweet, the image is clicked in New York. From the date of the tweet and the place of meeting as mentioned in the tweet, we can infer that this image was also clicked during the UN General Assembly session back in September 2018. Also, we could not find any recent news reports regarding a meeting of both the leaders or Erdogan refusing to shake hands with Macron. We can conclude that the image in the post is from the UN General Assembly back in 2018 and Turkey President Erdogan indeed shook hands with French President Macron during this meeting.
In the light of a standoff between France and Muslim countries over French President Macron’s comments on Islam followed by Turkish President’s call for the boycott of French goods, posts like these are being widely shared across social media platforms with misleading claims.
To sum it up, the image in the post was clicked back in 2018 during UNGA session. Macron and Erdogan indeed shook hands during their meet at the session.