A video showing French riot police violently beating a 26-year-old street medic in Paris has gone viral, with social media users falsely claiming he died from his injuries. But the street medic is alive, and spoke to FRANCE 24. The rumour was fuelled by confusion with a separate incident that same day: a man died of cardiac arrest in the same area, causing online users to conflate the two events. Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.
Antoine, a 26-year-old who volunteers as a "street medic" to provide first aid to injured protesters, spoke to the FRANCE 24 Observers about the incident after videos showing officers striking him, knocking him to the ground and dragging his apparently unconscious body circulated widely online.
In the footage from Saturday 17th October, Antoine appears to lose consciousness after officers strike him with batons. Some versions of the video were later shared with claims that he had been “assassinated by police” or “beaten to death”.
Antoine said he had stepped in front of a water cannon to identify himself as a medic, before being struck on the head with a baton: "I stepped in front of it to show I was harmless - I had “medic” written on an armband on my side.What I do remember is getting hit in the head from behind. I was half-unconscious, then something hit me in the back."
He regained consciousness in a fire engine, where emergency responders carried out a concussion test. Antoine said he continued to suffer severe headaches, planned to return to hospital for further examinations and intended to file a complaint. He also said his injuries had left him unable to work.
The false claims appear to have been fuelled by confusion surrounding a separate death in Paris on the same day.
French media and Paris police headquarters confirmed that a man had died from cardiac arrest on Boulevard Magenta, in the capital’s 10th arrondissement. The incident occurred in the same general area as the street medic's incident, which was filmed near Place de la République, near the intersection with the road Rue du Faubourg du Temple.
With limited information initially available about the man who died, social media users began conflating the two incidents and wrongly identifying the street medic as the victim.
One viral clip, which amassed more than five million views, was taken from a six-hour livestream of Saturday’s protests and reposted separately online. The caption initially described the man being dragged away as “unconscious”, before other posts escalated the claim, alleging that he had been killed or died from his injuries.
This particular false claim shows how misinformation can develop in stages over time: genuine footage of a violent incident is shared with incomplete information, speculation follows, and separate events are wrongly linked. In this instance, a confirmed death elsewhere in Paris helped fuel a false claim about a man who is still alive.