Much of the political scandal generated by the news that the French Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy, Marlène Schiappa, would appear in Playboy was generated by an image circulated on social networks of the alleged cover, where a wimpy in white swimsuit and wide neckline.
However, in the last few hours it has been learned that this coverage It’s a montage made by a Twitter user.
It was the team fact checker (a team dedicated to verifying the veracity of the news) by the AFP agency, which discovered the montage and the original image used to make the fake cover of Schiappa, where an alleged tattoo with a number referring to a constitutional article.
The path of a false cover
According to information released at the end of March by the French newspaper the ParisiansWimpy it would appear on the cover and in several photographs Inside the French edition of the April magazine.
The photos would illustrate a long twelve-page interview with Schiappa, who was Secretary of State for Equality during Macron’s first term (2017/2020) and subsequently Deputy Minister for Citizenship (2020/22).
According to the outlet, Playboy only released a snippet of its cover “to dose the effect.” Quoting Schiappa’s team, the Parisians He said the politician posed “dressed” in “a long white dress in all the photos” and appears wrapped in the French flag on the inside pages.
When asked by AFP about the cover circulating on social networks, in which Schiappa is seen in a bathing suit, a Schiappa adviser replied on April 3: “Obviously it’s a fabrication, it’s fake”.
The Parisian media have released a fragment of the cover of the April 6 issue, in which Schiappa is seen looking to the right, like the posts on social media, and a white strap on his shoulder can be guessed. The rest of the body is not seen and the credit goes to Playboy.
The alleged cover reads “49.3” in one of the political sections, the number of the constitutional article through which the French president, Emmanuel Macron, approved the pension reform by decree, which has been causing mobilizations throughout the country for weeks.
An article published by the Italian newspaper The Morningor include the tweet posted above with a full-body image of Wimpy Kid. It was released on April 1 at 11:16 am French time, shortly after it became known that the official had given the Playboy interview.
Several users have commented on the photo and they claimed it was fake. In response, the tweeter denied that it was the real cover and found guilty” when asked if it was true or false.
AFP was able to discover that, in fact, the body seen on the full cover comes from another photograph available on the Internet from several years earlier. Using a reverse lookup with the extension InVid-WeVerifythe AFP verification team found a file with a similar image on TinEye.
After downloading that image, a new reverse search led to Pexels, an image bank. The snapshot is described as “a sexy woman in a white shirt poses sitting in a chair” and according to its metadata was taken on June 24, 2020 and uploaded on December 16 of the same year. It is located in Hong Kong and the author is Koma Tang.
Details such as the position of the hands and legs and the fold in the seat allow for this determine that it is the same photograph.
For his part, the editor of the magazine, Jean-Christophe Florentin, did not want to reveal to AFP any further details on the cover of the April 6 issue of the French edition of Playboy.
Other media, such as the continuous news channel BFM TV, broadcast other photographs which presumably include the new edition of the magazine. In one of them Shiappa appears with the same gesture as the fragment published by Le Parisienbut instead of a bathing suit, she wears a long white dress.
Shiappa’s decision to pose for Playboy has sparked controversy in France, which is seeing massive protests against postponing the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030 and raising the contribution to 43 by 2027 to collect a full board.
She justified her decision in a post on Twitter: “The defense of women’s right to dispose of their bodies is always and everywhere. In France, women are free”.
Source: AFP Facts
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.