Two French TV channels apologize for airing Albanian protest images as Paris and Lyon

Two French news channels apologized this weekend after misidentifying images of protests in Albania as demonstrations taking place in France. CNEWS made the mix-up first, on Saturday, while a mass march was getting underway peacefully in southern Paris. The footage was presented as coming from Paris and Lyon, though it showed Albanian protests. Both channels backpedaled and apologized.

Right-leaning outlets Newsmax and the Washington Times carried the story under headlines matching the AP's wording, that French TV channels scrambled to apologize after airing Albanian protests as Paris and Lyon. Their excerpts open with the same sentence about two channels backpedaling and apologizing over misidentified images; Newsmax also names CNEWS and Saturday, while the Washington Times excerpt ends before that. The AP, the alternative source, is the only excerpt that adds the peaceful southern Paris march. None of the excerpts name the second channel or describe the wording of the apologies. Left-leaning outlets tracked by Crosswire had not reported the story at the time of writing, while alternative/independent and right-leaning outlets had; those covering it focus on the mislabeled footage and the apologies. Right and alternative coverage largely match, with no visible difference in claims, sources or framing; the difference is only how much of the text each excerpt shows.