""Coup d'etat in France," declared the video, posted by the 17-year-old, showing what appeared to be journalists reporting on an ongoing takeover by an unidentified colonel. In one shot, the Eiffel Tower and the blue lights from a police car flashed in the background. "Demonstrators have gathered to support the colonel who seems to have taken power yesterday," said the reporters. It was all fake, of course: the product of his online training in the use of artificial intelligence."
"Posted on December 9 on TikTok, then shortly afterwards on Facebook, the post went viral, garnering more than 12 million views and tens of thousands of "likes". Last Tuesday, when Macron was asked about the video during a visit to Marseille, he spoke of his frustration at not having been able to force Facebook to take it down. They had told him that it did not violate their rules, he said."
"In the end, it was the creator himself who deleted it, shortly after the French news media started contacting him. Speaking to AFP, he explained that he had got into creating AI-generated videos last year after finding a training course on YouTube. But he only really started producing in October 2025. He was taken aback by his sudden celebrity and that the French media was reporting on and even interviewing him. He laughed about all the fuss in a video posted to his Facebook page."
A 17-year-old from Burkina Faso used online AI tools to produce a fake video claiming a coup in France, featuring staged reporters, an unidentified colonel, the Eiffel Tower and police lights. The video was posted on December 9 to TikTok and then Facebook, and it amassed over 12 million views and tens of thousands of likes. French president Emmanuel Macron expressed frustration that Facebook would not remove the clip, saying it did not violate the platform's rules. The creator said his aim was ad revenue, earned seven euros, deleted the post after media contact, and expressed no regrets.
Read at The Local France
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