With recent tensions in France and the related boycott call of French products by Muslims in various countries, a video of people dumping some products is being shared widely on social media with a claim that it shows French products being dumped into the garbage in Kuwait. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of French products being dumped into the garbage in Kuwait.
Fact: The posted video was not taken in Kuwait. It is an old video from Saudi Arabia where spoiled cheese was dumped. It is not related to the recent boycott call of French products by Muslims in various countries. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When the screenshots of the video were run through Google Reverse Image Search, several news articles containing the same visuals were found in the search results. It can be read in the articles published in May 2020 that the video is related to Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait. They have also reported that the Ministry of Commerce gave clarification regarding the video when it went viral with false claims. In May 2020, the Ministry has tweeted – ‘The information received is incorrect, and there are no carcinogens, so 1628 cheese products that appeared in the video clip were confiscated and destroyed, due to the appearance of signs of spoilage due to their poor storage’ (translated by Google).
We also found that other verified Twitter handles tweeted regarding this video back in May 2020. Some of those tweets can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, an old video from Saudi Arabia falsely shared as ‘France products being dumped in Kuwait’.
