Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

PARIS

No, the Eiffel Tower is not on fire

A fake video appearing to show the Paris landmark ablaze has now been viewed millions of times on social media, with many users apparently believing that the Eiffel Tower is on fire.

Published: 24 January 2024 16:30 CET
No, the Eiffel Tower is not on fire
A screenshot of the AI-generated video showing the Eiffel Tower ablaze.

The AI-generated footage was posted on the social media channel TikTok last week, and since then the footage has received 4.7 million likes and has been widely shared online.

While many users realised that the images were obviously fake, thousands did not, with people using the hashtag ‘pray for Paris’ in response.

A search on TikTok for ‘Eiffel Tower’ brings up ‘Eiffel Tower on fire’ and ‘Eiffel Tower 2024 fire’ as the top results. 

As is hopefully clear by now – the Paris landmark is not on fire and on Wednesday continued to welcome tourists. 

The tower was the most-visited tourist spot in Paris in 2023, welcoming 6.3 million visitors.

13 things you might not know about Paris’ ‘Iron Lady’

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

STRIKES

Olympic pay strike to ‘severely disrupt’ Paris public transport on Tuesday

A Tuesday rail strike over bonuses for Paris' July-August Olympic Games period will leave just one in five suburban commuter trains running on some lines in the French capital, operator SNCF have warned.

Published: 20 May 2024 09:57 CEST
Olympic pay strike to 'severely disrupt' Paris public transport on Tuesday

Traffic will be “very severely disrupted”, SNCF said, with certain lines suspended outside peak hours.

The operator’s Transilien Paris regional network has urged people to work from home or find alternate transport on Tuesday, which follows a Monday public holiday.

Rail workers’ unions are pressuring SNCF in negotiations over bonuses for working through the Olympic period.

Their counterparts at transport operator RATP, which runs metro and bus services in Paris, have already secured an average 1,000-euro ($1,086) bonus, reaching up to 2,500 euros for the most in-demand train and bus drivers.

“We thought the talks were dragging on a bit and wanted to provoke something,” Fabien Villedieu of the SUD-Rail union told AFP on Friday.

“We have a heavy workload with 4,500 additional trains in August, so a whole range of our colleagues won’t be able to go on holiday,” he added.

Strikes and threats of industrial action during the Games have marked the months leading up to the event, including from rubbish collectors and government and medical workers.

Rubbish collectors this month won a pay rise on top of an Olympic bonus, heading off multiple days of walkouts flagged for later in May and over the period of the Games.

SHOW COMMENTS