Fake News: French Senate Christmas Bonus NOT Capped At 'Only' 17 580 Euro

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: French Senate Christmas Bonus NOT Capped At 'Only' 17 580 Euro

Is the French senate limiting the bonus its members receive for Chrismas to "only" €17.850 this year? No, that's not true: the story and the composition of the bonus was made up by a French satire website.

The story originated from an article published by Science Info on December 27, 2018 titled "La prime de Noël des sénateurs sera plafonnée cette année à 17 580 euros seulement" (archived here) which opened:

C'est une conséquence directe du mouvement des «gilets jaunes» : de plus en plus de voix s'élèvent pour dénoncer les avantages dont bénéficient les sénateurs.

Et ce mouvement de contestation tombe au plus mal pour nos dynamiques parlementaires car le mois de décembre correspond à la période où est versée leur prime de Noël.

D'un montant forfaitaire égal à deux fois l'indemnité sénatoriale (soit 2 x 7209 euros), s'ajoutent à cette dernière diverses bonifications comme la prime additionnelle de Noël pour les enfants (5 000 euros par enfant), la prime pour les petits enfants (2 500 par petit enfant), celle pour Madame (8 000 euros), la prime de charbon (2 000 euros) et celle pour le sapin (800 euros).

Translated:

This is a direct consequence of the movement of "yellow vests": more and more voices are raised to denounce the benefits enjoyed by senators.

And this protest movement comes at the worst time for our dynamical parliamentarians because the month of December is the time when their Christmas bonus is paid.

The bonus comes to a lump sum equal to twice the senatorial allowance (2 x 7209 euros), added to the latter are various bonuses such as additional Christmas bonus for children (5 000 euros per child), the premium for small children (2,500 per small child), one for Madame (8,000 euros), the coal premium (2,000 euros) and for the fir (800 euros).

The story mentions this year's amount will be capped with the remainder being put into a fund that will be distributed among senators as soon as the popular anger has subsided.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

La prime de Noël des sénateurs sera plafonnée cette année à 17 580 euros seulement

C'est une conséquence directe du mouvement des «gilets jaunes» : de plus en plus de voix s'élèvent pour dénoncer les avantages dont bénéficient les sénateurs. Et ce mouvement de contestation tombe au plus mal pour nos dynamiques parlementaires car le mois de décembre correspond à la période où est versée leur prime de Noël. D'un ...

However Scienceinfo.fr carries following text on its "about" page:

Voilà, il suffit juste d'être un peu curieux et de cliquer sur ce lien pour découvrir que ce site d'information scientifique publie des informations totalement fausses, voire archifausses et en plus, même pas vraies.

Qu'on se le dise une fois pour toutes : le site ScienceInfo.fr est un site parodique, satirique, anxiogène et sans gêne.

Toutes les informations exposées sont, malheureusement pour certaines et heureusement pour d'autres, inventées de toutes pièces.

Bref, tout est faux. Cela va des noms et citations attribués à des personnes imaginaires ou sociétés imaginées.

Quand aux actions et citations attribuées à des personnes existantes - ainsi que les faits les concernant - elles sont évidemment fausses et imaginées pour renforcer le caractère ubuesque des articles.

Bref, ne croyez pas tout ce que l'on vous raconte et à plus forte raison tout ce que vous lisez sur internet. Soyez vigilants ... et pensez à sourire 🙂

This is basically the same text which can be found on the "about" page of scienceinfo.news, the English version of the site:

This ScienceInfo.news website is the English version of the French ScienceInfo.fr scientific information website.

Now, all you need is to be just a little curious and click on this link to find out that this scientific information site publishes totally false or sensationally fake information, which is, moreover, not true at all.

Let it be said once and for all: the site ScienceInfo.news is a parody, satirical, unnerving and shameless site.

All information presented herein is, unfortunately for some and fortunately for others, totally fabricated.

In short, everything here is false. This includes names and quotes attributed to imaginary people or companies.

If the activites and quotes are attributed to real people as well as real facts about them, they are obviously false and devised to emphasize the grotesque nature of articles.

In short, do not believe everything you are told and, even more so, everything you read on the internet. Keep alert... and remember to smile

We wrote about scienceinfo.fr before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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