On June 4, 2023, a Georgian-language Facebook account published a post with the following description: “It’s been two nights already that in Partis, the Eiffel Tower is illuminated in the colours of the Russian and Belarusian flags…” The post is accompanied by two photos of the Eiffel Tower, one showing the tower lit up in white, blue and red; the other in green and red.
The disseminated post contains elements of photo manipulation. In fact, the Eiffel Tower was not illuminated in the colours of either Russia or Belarus. The widely circulated photo of the Eiffel Tower in red and green was taken in 2016 and featured the colours of the Portuguese flag.
In June 2023, the Eiffel Tower was not illuminated in the colours of any country, which can be confirmed by the materials posted on the official Facebook and Twitter pages of the tower. The Eiffel Tower was not lit up in the colours of the flags of Russia and Belarus in the past months either.
In fact, the viral photo featuring the Eiffel Tower in red and green dates from June-July 2016. At that time, the UEFA European Champions League final was taking place, and the Eiffel Tower was illuminated several times in the colours of the French and Portuguese flags. The fact that the photo was taken during the UEFA finals can be confirmed by the ball hanging in the middle of the Eiffel Tower, which is the symbol of the football championship.
As for the second photo, which shows the Eiffel Tower illuminated in white, blue and red colours, the disseminated version does not match the colour order of the photos of the Eiffel illuminated in the colours of the French flag at the 2016 championship. An identical photo, apart from a few Russian-language blogs, cannot be found in open sources either, and is allegedly altered by computer software.
See photos of the Eiffel Tower illuminated in the colours of the French flag taken on different days during the 2016 championship:
Notably, during the 2016 UEFA championship, the telecommunications company Orange launched a campaign, according to which Orange would illuminate the Eiffel Tower after every match in the colours of the participating country, which would collect the most hashtags on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on the day of the match. Russia was included in 24 participating teams; however, in the media covering the championship, there is no footage or information that would confirm that the tower was lit up in the colours of the Russian flag.
We have managed to trace the circulated photo back to several Russian-language blogs and social networks. The search engine found the earliest published version on a blog in June 2016, which uses an identical photo but does not mention that the Eiffel Tower was illuminated in this way. In the material on the site, readers are provided with information regarding Orange’s hashtag campaign for the 2016 championship. The article’s author encourages readers to write the hashtags #RUS and #OdnaKomanda so that the Eiffel Tower can be lit up in the colours of the Russian flag, in addition to the colours of the flags of other countries. Presumably, this photo version of the Eiffel illuminated in white, blue and red colours is also attached to the material to illustrate the campaign by Orange.
In general, different symbols are displayed on the Eiffel Tower only on special occasions. As for the colours of the flags of other countries, the Eiffel Tower was last lit up in the colours of the Ukrainian flag on February 23, 2023, one year after the start of the Ukraine-Russia war.
Photomanipulations related to the illumination of main landmarks have been disseminated in the past as well. For more information, see:
Archive link: https://archive.is/SA1ff
Miranda Mtchedlishvili and Maiko Ratiani
MYTH DETECTOR LAB
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