Fact Check: Old Visuals Of Ganesh Festival Celebrations In Paris Falsely Linked To 2024 Olympics
Several posts are circulating on social media purporting to show a coconut-breaking ritual happening in Paris in the run-up to the Olympic Games.
The Verdict [Misleading]
The video shows a Ganesh festival celebration in Paris in August 2023 and is unrelated to the upcoming 2024 Olympics.
What is the claim?
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games begin in Paris, France, on July 26 and end on August 11, 2024. Against this backdrop, posts are circulating on social media purporting to show a coconut-breaking ritual happening in Paris in the run-up to the Olympic Games.
The video, showing a crowd gathered on the streets as a group of people smash coconuts on the ground, is being shared on Facebook with the caption, "Paris is almost ready for the 2024 Olympic Games." Archives of such posts can be seen here, here, and here.
However, while the video is indeed from Paris, it is being shared with misleading context.
What are the facts?
Through a reverse image search, we found that the video dates back to August 2023. A user shared the video (archived here) on X (formerly Twitter) on August 29, 2023, and wrote, "Hindu revelers held a religious parade in Paris on a major thoroughfare this year, continuing a tradition that began in the 1990s."
On August 27, 2023, image-hosting website Shutterstock published a photo showing people breaking coconuts on a street and captioned it, "Coconut breaking ritual during Festival of the god Ganesh on Parisian streets. The Hindu and Tamil community celebrates the birthday of god-elephant Ganesh holiday."
Several people seen in the viral video are visible in the image. At the 0:22 mark of the video, a woman with white hair, carrying a backpack can also be seen in the Shutterstock image. A man in a green lungi (a traditional men’s skirt worn in India) is visible at the 0:33 mark of the video and the image, as well as a man in a black vest, visible at the 0:23 mark of the video.
The video was credited to a TikTok page that has posted several other videos from the event on the platform, including the viral video (archived here), on August 27, 2023. This confirms that the video is from 2023 and shows the Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi being celebrated in Paris.
Further, we found several videos on YouTube (archived here and here) by vloggers that showed the same area that they noted was the La Chapelle area in Paris. They mentioned that the scenes showed the Ganesh festival being celebrated. These videos also showed similar visuals of stacked coconuts in front of the same stores seen in the viral video; one also captured a chariot bearing an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh traveling down a road.
Ganesh festival celebrations in Paris
Every year, Paris’ Ganesh temple Sri Manicka Vinayakar Alayam organizes the Festival of the Lord Ganesh in Paris. In 2023, the celebration was held on August 27, 2023. Paris city guide website Sortir a Paris wrote in August, 2023, that the festival consists of religious ceremonies and a procession through the streets of the district; coconut breaking is a part of it.
Paris Secret, another Paris travel guide website, reported on August 25, 2023, that the festival would be held that year on August 27 in front of the Temple of Sri Manicka Vinayakar Alayam on rue Pajol in Paris.
Various photos from the event over the years are available on stock image sites such as Getty Images, and Alamy.
The verdict
An old video from a Ganesh festival celebration held in Paris every year, which includes a Hindu ritual of coconut breaking, is being shared with the false claim it shows scenes in the city ahead of the 2024 Olympics.
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