Claim that video shows ‘gang of Muslim immigrants’ assaulting women is false
The video shows a scripted exercise by students of a stunt performance school
CLAIM
A user on X claimed a video of a brawl showed a “gang of Muslim immigrants” trying to assault a group of young women in France, before the women fought back.
BACKGROUND
On September 7, a user on X who calls themselves Dr. Maalouf uploaded a video appearing to show a street fight that broke out between a group of men and three women.
In the clip, the men can be seen loitering inside a tunnel before three women enter the frame. The men seem to begin heckling and harassing the women, and the situation turns into an all-out fight.
In the video, the three women manage to take down the nine men in a matter of seconds, employing some impressive fighting skills, before they get away at the other end of the tunnel.
The uploader wrote in the post accompanying the video: “In France, a gang of Muslim immigrants tried to assault a group of young women. Little did they know what awaited them. Don’t mess with the French women!”
The post was viewed over 1.4 million times. The uploader, @realMaalouf, self-describes as a “geopolitical commentator”, a “specialist in ancient history and ethnoreligious groups”, a “genetics enthusiast” and an “expert in indigenous rights”.
Recent posts on the account suggest that this X user holds strong negative views about Islam. Most of the user’s recent posts involve commentary on the Muslim world, purported incidents involving Muslim immigrants in the West, and anti-Palestine viewpoints amid Israel’s war on Gaza.
METHOD
We carried out a reverse image search on stills from this clip in an attempt to find the source of the video.
During that process, we found older uses of the video, including this one from November 2023. The uploader painted a similar picture of the scene in the caption, writing: “Somewhere in a subway in Paris, security cameras captured a heartwarming scene… A group of Muslim Military Age Men thought they had easy prey. Unfortunately for them, the 3 women belong to some kind of French paramilitary group & know well how to deal with the thugs.”
Both of the videos include a username, “@videoo72”. This appears to be a type of watermark for videos shared to an Instagram account of the same name that posts viral third-party content sourced from across the internet.
Further searches led us to the original video, which was uploaded by Campus Univers Cascades. It was posted on November 2, 2023. The verified page posts content from its stunt school, showing students training for work as professional stunt performers and engaging in scripted exercises, like the one shown here.
In the clip, one of the men in the scene can be seen wearing a hoodie that bears the ‘CUC’ logo of the French academy, which can be verified via the school’s official website. It describes itself as the largest stunt school in the world.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the video does not show a genuine attack on three women, but rather is a scripted exercise carried out by a French stunt school.
RATING
The claim that a “gang of Muslim immigrants” tried to assault a group of young women is false. The video shows a scripted exercise by students of a stunt performance school.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: In France, a gang of Muslim immigrants tried to assault a group of young women… [Accessed 17 Sep. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2023). Somewhere in a subway in Paris… [Accessed 17 Sep. 2024].
Instagram. (2020). Campus Univers Cascades on Instagram: ‘Street fight ⚠️👊 ©️ @campus.univers.cascades #cucteam #campuslife #street #fight #martialarts #video #stuntteam #fighter #campus #boxing #ko #combat #follow #martial #bagarre #action #cinema #choregraphy #cascadeuse #stuntlife’. [online] [Accessed 17 Sep. 2024].
Campus Univers Cascades – CUC. (2024). Campus Univers Cascades – Cascadeurs professionnels et Formations. [online] [Accessed 17 Sep. 2024].