Image of France's Macron kneeling before Thai king during state visit is AI-generated - Yahoo
An AI-generated image falsely depicting French President Emmanuel Macron kneeling before the Thai King during a state visit circulated widely on social media
- Incident date
- Jul 2026
- Target
- Emmanuel Macron, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, Queen Suthida
In July 2026, social media users in Thailand circulated an AI-generated image falsely depicting French President Emmanuel Macron kneeling to present France's highest decorations to King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida. The fabricated image gained significant traction, garnering over 40,000 likes and 2,100 shares on Facebook alone.
What happened
The incident followed an official state visit by the Thai monarch to France on June 29, 2026, marking the 170th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations. While President Macron did host the King and Queen at the Elysee Palace and presented them with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit respectively, the viral image purporting to show the President kneeling was entirely fabricated.
Multiple visual discrepancies exposed the image as a deepfake. Notably, the Queen was depicted in the AI version without the distinctive long cape present on her traditional Thai dress during the actual event. Furthermore, official photographs released by the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the awards were presented with the items displayed on a table, contradicting the kneeling posture shown in the viral graphic. OpenAI’s image verification tool ultimately identified the graphic as having been generated with its tools. Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally confirmed the image did not reflect reality, and AFP investigators verified that no such interaction occurred during the state dinner or decoration ceremony.