Comparisons to the "This is fine" meme were instantaneous after the video was posted on social media. On Monday evening, as spontaneous protests against the pension reform erupted throughout the France, customers of a restaurant in Saint-Etienne were filmed dining quietly, surrounded by flames. "The France has become the This is fine meme," comment netizens, resuming these images millions of times on Twitter and TikTok.


🇫🇷 LYON 🇫🇷
In the greatest calm customers continue to eat, while it is the K.O in the streets of Lyon.#MacronDEGAGE #MotionDeCensureTransPartisane #ReformesDesRetraites #Manifestations pic.twitter.com/6YDRcf7Gar

— Hakim (@Hakim69Lyon) March 20, 2023

Access to this content has been blocked in order to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "I ACCEPT", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I AGREE

And to better pay 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our button "I accept for today" in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Policy page.


The scene was first identified as being in Lyon, before the author of the tweet indicated that it was actually a pizzeria in Saint-Etienne. "The moment lasted five minutes," Giuseppe Urso, owner of the establishment, the Stromboli, told 20 Minutes, refuting the theories of a montage.


"The person who filmed was in a corner of the restaurant. Some customers, seen in the video, could not even see what was happening behind them," he said, adding that the fire was actually more than three meters from his restaurant.



For his part, he was "tidying up his terrace" at the time of the facts. He added: "Protesters set fire to garbage cans, the police made them leave and moments later everything was off." He laughs today at the buzz that the eight-second video has created. "I even saw that we were talking about it internationally. It's crazy because it really looks like the dog with the flames around but it's obviously not the same context! " he concludes.

  • Pension reform 2023
  • Did you see?
  • Lyon
  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
  • Rhône-Alpes
  • Etienne
  • Meme
  • Culture
  • Internet
  • Buzz