French TV Networks Issue Apologies After Broadcasting Albanian Protests as Domestic Unrest
French broadcasters CNEWS and Franceinfo issue apologies after mistakenly airing footage of anti-government protests in Albania as domestic unrest.
POLICY WIRE — Paris, France — Two prominent French television networks issued public apologies over the weekend after mistakenly broadcasting footage of demonstrations in Albania as domestic unrest occurring within France.
CNEWS initiated the sequence of errors on Saturday during peaceful demonstrations in southern Paris, which formed part of roughly 300 nationwide rallies addressing living costs and school funding. Instead of showing the local march at Porte d’Italie, the broadcaster aired footage captured in the Albanian capital of Tirana, depicting individuals with covered faces and a red flag.
During the broadcast, a commentator over the CNEWS segment characterized the visible participants as behaving like future vandals and rioters, anticipating violence at the Paris event. Actual demonstrations in Paris did experience late-stage clashes, prompting police interventions with tear gas, water cannons, and sound grenades, alongside scattered unrest that resulted in 1,314 arrests nationwide according to the Interior Ministry.
Verification by international journalists confirmed that the footage displayed by CNEWS originated from Rruga e Durrësit in central Tirana. Following the broadcast, presenter Olivier Benkemoun addressed the error on air, citing control room confusion regarding incoming video feeds and formally apologizing on behalf of the newsroom.
The misidentification drew swift condemnation from political figures, including far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who criticized the use of foreign footage to depict local events on social media. Public broadcaster Franceinfo committed a similar error on Saturday by airing footage of riot officers advancing behind water cannon trucks on Bulevardi Dëshmorët e Kombit in Tirana, while presenting it as live coverage originating from Lyon.
Franceinfo corrected the broadcast error three minutes later, acknowledging that the transmission featured live imagery from Albania rather than the southeastern French city. Contributing reporting for the original coverage was provided by journalists Zana Cimili and Florent Bajrami in Tirana.
Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)
