Video footage of European political leaders taking a train to Ukraine went viral on Sunday after conspiracy theorists claimed that it showed cocaine on a table in front of French President Emannuel Macron. Alex Jones, arguably America’s most prominent conspiracy theorist if you don’t count the President of the United States, even shared an image that had been altered to make it look more like a bag of cocaine.
The controversy all started because European leaders were photographed on May 9, 2025, traveling on a train to Ukraine to meet with that country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss the war against Russia. Macron can be seen with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the video and still photos captured by reporters.
In the video, you can see Macron grab something white on the table in front of them. Jones and his ilk insisted that something nefarious was going on.
“DEVELOPING SCANDAL: Macron, Starmer, and Merz caught on video on their return from Kiev,” Jones wrote, misidentifying the video as the leaders coming back from Kiev rather than the train ride there. The video was taken on May 9.
“A bag of white powder on the table,” Jones continued. “Macron quickly pockets it, Merz hides the spoon. No explanation given. Zelensky, known cocaine enthusiast, had just hosted them. All three of the ‘leaders’ look completely cracked out.”
DEVELOPING SCANDAL: Macron, Starmer, and Merz caught on video on their return from Kiev. A bag of white powder on the table. Macron quickly pockets it, Merz hides the spoon. No explanation given. Zelensky, known cocaine enthusiast, had just hosted them. All three of the “leaders”… pic.twitter.com/M2h5Fhzo5h
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) May 11, 2025
Starmer looks overly excited in one of the photos, but to say they look “completely cracked out” is ridiculous. And none of what Jones insisted is real. Getty Images has high-resolution photos that allow us to zoom in on the supposed bag of cocaine to better inspect what’s going on. And it’s clearly just a napkin or tissue.
One of the images Jones shared on X actually looked much more like a bag of cocaine. But it’s been altered in some way.
You can clearly see it’s a bag of Blow,. https://t.co/C3SSJzhKrS pic.twitter.com/dcRDn7uIgU
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) May 12, 2025
It’s unclear what kind of alterations Jones may have made to get the tissue to look like that, but our best guess is that he ran it through an AI image upscaler. Those kinds of tools will take lower-resolution images and try to make them appear sharper by smoothing edges. And as you can see, the image posted by Jones has an almost glassy shine.
The tweet from Jones also claims there’s a spoon that was hidden by Merz. Getty Images doesn’t have a good angle on that object, so it’s difficult to say definitively what it is, but it really doesn’t look like a spoon. It’s goldish in color, as you can see below, and looks like some kind of clip or zip-tie that maybe had some function with the binders in front of them. But it doesn’t look like a spoon.
The viral conspiracy theory has gotten a lot of attention, with over 26 million views on Jones’s tweet alone. And that forced the French president’s office to issue a denial, pointing out that it’s just a tissue.
When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs.
This fake news is being spread by France’s enemies, both abroad and at home. We must remain vigilant against manipulation. pic.twitter.com/xyXhGm9Dsr
— Élysée (@Elysee) May 11, 2025
The images posted to X by Jones haven’t received any Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking program. X has become one of the largest hubs of misinformation on the internet ever since billionaire Elon Musk bought the site in late 2022. Musk welcomed back neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes, anti-Muslim bigots like Laura Loomer, and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, all of whom were previously banned on the platform.
Jones and his far-right buddies have long spread conspiracy theories about Ukraine in an effort to undermine the country, since they admire Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Jones has even suggested that he would be open to moving to Russia. So whenever you see this kind of garbage being spread, it’s good to ask yourself what other motivations Jones may have for claiming the leaders of liberal democracies are doing illicit drugs. They tried it repeatedly with Zelensky, so why not try it with all his allies as well?
