On August 22, the program “The Hour of Politics with Tamta Karchava” was published on the Facebook page Salte, featuring Nata Darchiashvili as the guest. During the program, the following statements were made about European countries:
- Germany has passed a law allowing 14-year-old children to undergo gender-reaffirming surgery without parental consent if they choose to do so.
- France has announced that it will openly engage in combat if Russia seizes Zaporizhia.
- A journalist in France was stripped of accreditation for receiving funding from abroad.
- Les Invalides (House of Invalids) is depicted without its cross on an Olympic Games promotional poster, with the education minister describing it as modern art.
Salte TV’s program contains four pieces of false and manipulative information: 1) the claim that Germany has passed a law allowing 14-year-old children to undergo gender-reaffirming surgery without parental consent is disinformation. In reality, the law deals with name and gender identity changes in official documents, not surgery, and even then, parental consent is required for minors; 2) the assertion that France has announced that it will openly engage in combat if Russia seizes Zaporizhia is also untrue. No French official has made such a statement; 3) there is no information in open sources that a journalist in France has lost accreditation due to receiving foreign funding; 4) the claim that the Olympic Games promotional poster deliberately depicts Les Invalides (House of Invalids) without its cross is manipulative. In reality, all major landmarks depicted on the poster are altered and interpreted by the artist, and Les Invalides and its cross in particular were not the target.
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Disinformation that Germany has passed a law allowing 14-year-old children to have gender-reaffirming surgery without parental consent if they choose to do so.
This claim is false. In reality, Germany has adopted a law that simplifies the change of gender identity in official documents and does not address issues related to gender-reassignment surgery. Under the previous legislation, an applicant wishing to change sex on official documents had to submit two expert opinions and then obtain a court approval, because changing sex on official documents, according to the initial version of the law, required divorce, sterilization, or gender-transition surgery along with expert opinions.
The law will ease this procedure, and the change of name and gender identity in legal documents will become possible for adults without the abovementioned formalities. Once the change has been made, no other changes are allowed for one year.
With regard to minors, the law allows the change of name and gender in official documents for minors aged 14 and older with the consent of their parents. The minor may appeal against the parents’ decision in court. Children under the age of 14 will not be allowed to register for this service without their parents.
The law does not concern sex-reassignment surgery. This issue will again be regulated by the current legislation, which authorizes sex-reassignment surgery for minors only with the approval of parents or an official entity.
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Disinformation that France has announced that it will openly engage in combat if Russia seizes Zaporizhia.
Such a statement cannot be found in open sources. In one of his interviews in May this year, French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out the possibility of sending French servicemen to Ukraine if Russia broke through front lines and Ukraine requested assistance from France. Macron had voiced his position on the possibility of sending French servicemen to Ukraine before this interview too. After this statement, it also became known that France, along with its allies, was considering sending military trainers to Ukraine. However, a particular statement about open engagement in the war in case Zaporizhia is seized has never been made by any French official.
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No information can be found about a journalist who was deprived of accreditation in France for receiving foreign funding.
Nata Darchiashvili could not give the name and surname of the journalist but claimed that it happened four or five months ago. Such information cannot be found in open sources. Recently, organizers of the Olympic Games in France suspended the accreditation of four Russian journalists covering the event for TASS. The reason for this decision was not disclosed, but it is worth noting that over 100 journalists, including those from Russia, were denied entry visas due to espionage threats.
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The claim that a promotional poster for the Olympic Games deliberately depicts Les Invalides without its cross and the education minister describing it as modern art is manipulative.
Les Invalides is indeed depicted without its cross on one of the posters for the Olympic Games in Paris, which has drawn criticism from a segment of politicians. The statement attributed to the French education minister cannot be found in open sources, but the author of the poster himself explained that he depicted the major landmarks of Paris in the way they come to his mind, without any ulterior motive. According to him, the aim of the painting was not to give an accurate and unaltered representation of these buildings but rather to interpret them as an Art Deco fantasy utopia. Apart from the dome of Les Invalides, all the buildings shown in the poster differ from the real ones. For example, the Eiffel Tower is pink, while the metro runs through the Arc de Triomphe:
Source: BBC
It is worth noting that this is not the first time that a building on an Olympic Games poster has been altered and missing its cross. For example, one of the posters for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris depicted a javelin thrower against the background of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica in Montmartre without its cross.
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