A French opinion column that claimed racially motivated attacks, looting, and arson against African-owned shops during the Africa Cup of Nations final in Morocco was published without evidence, prompting a formal police correction.
The text appeared in the debates and opinions section of Le Point and asserted that shops owned by citizens from sub-Saharan African countries were attacked, pillaged and burned on the margins of the AFCON final between Morocco and Senegal.
The column provided no locations, dates, victims, police records or eyewitness accounts for the alleged crimes and did not cite sources.
Moroccan police said no prior request for information or verification was made to security services before publication.
In a statement issued on Friday, the DGSN said it had recorded no criminal attacks or arson targeting shops or economic interests owned by citizens from sub Saharan African countries anywhere in Morocco during the competition or after the final.
The police described the claims as false and said they had reviewed national records covering the relevant period.
Le Point positions the AFCON final as proof of a broader thesis about the failure of multicultural and diaspora coexistence.
After asserting alleged attacks in Morocco as fact, the column moves rapidly to France, listing racist insults exchanged online, historical references to the Arab slave trade, examples from Tunisia, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, and a catalogue of intercommunal clashes on French territory, assembled to argue that racism is reciprocal, imported and structurally embedded in diasporic societies, and that France has underestimated the political and social consequences of large scale immigration.
The police statement comes within a wider context of misinformation circulating during AFCON, including claims of violence and other incidents that authorities said were unfounded, but which were widely shared during the tense aftermath of the match, fuelling xenophobic and polarising commentary online.
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