In late February 2024, a video captioned, "Macron … before his political life," went viral on X (formerly Twitter), receiving over 6.6 million views at the time of this reporting:
The video originated from a smaller account on X, @JebraFaushay, which titled the clip, "This is from a disco in 1987, do you see the leader of France, Macron, in a wig?" Jebra Faushay, according to a biography on BuyMeACoffee, is "creating satire/news everyday." This video clearly falls into the satire category.
For one thing, Emmanuel Macron would have been 10 in 1987 — something he self-evidently is not in the video. For another thing, several scenes in the video show what appears to be Macron's face superimposed, likely with the help of AI, on the bodies of multiple people all at once:
For yet another thing, at least a portion of the viral clip can be traced to a video on the YouTube channel Neon Vibes, whose associated Instagram account is dedicated to "80s and early 90s aesthetics." Though the image is reversed from the original, a serious attempt at deception would likely have made sure that only one face was changed in the scene:
Because the author of the original video produces satire, and because the video is chronologically illogical and obviously and poorly doctored, we rate the claim "Originated as Satire."