European Women Adopting Pigs To Avoid Harassment From Muslim Men? Here’s The Truth Behind Viral Videos

A couple of videos purportedly showing women in France and Italy walking pigs on a leash are going viral across social media platforms with the claim that they are adopting the farm animals as pets to avoid being harassed by Muslim men on the streets and on public transport. The archived versions of the posts can be seen here and here, which have amassed 30.1 million views so far.

“…this is not merely a whimsical choice but a strategic one, aimed at deterring harassment from certain groups, specifically mentioned as Muslim men…The post claims that young French women are purchasing pet pigs because of cultural taboos associated with pigs in Islam, where they are considered unclean. This cultural difference is believed to act as a deterrent, making harassers think twice before approaching,” read this India Herald report on the viral videos, while a couple of Facebook posts, seen here and here, stated that women in the two countries are now feeling safer walking with pigs, along with the hashtag #muslim. 

These claims are going viral on the heels of a newly released audit on the allegations of girls being “groomed” for sexual abuse in the UK, which, apart from recommending a national inquiry, has reportedly called out authorities for allegedly refraining from recording the ethnicity of the perpetrators — who were often men of Pakistani origin or, as the report says, Asian heritage.

Fact Check

Newschecker first ran a keyword search for “Italian French women pet pigs Muslim men”, which did not lead us to any credible news reports by major media outlets on such a trend, indicating that the claims may be false.

Video 1

We noticed that in the 13-second video, a purported Italian passerby on the street repeatedly says the word “Dior” while looking at the pig before proceeding to greet in Italian, saying, “Ciao Dior, come stai bene”, which translates to “Hello Dior, how are you doing? Good?”.  We also transcribed the audio heard in the video using an online tool, which, when translated from Italian, stated: “Here you are Dior. Hello Dior, hello Dior, how are you? Are you okay?”

Taking a cue, a relevant keyword search led us to this report by Italian news outlet Il Messaggero, dated September 17, 2019, stating that Dior is a well-known pet pig who would frequently be seen walking on a leash with his owner in Rome, Italy. A similar March 25, 2019, report on how young farm animals were being adopted as pets in Rome can be seen here, naming Dior the piglet and “Hansel the lamb”. We also came across this September 25, 2019, photo on the stock images website Alamy, stating that it shows a woman walking in Via del Corso, Rome, with a pig on a leash named Dior.

Video 2

Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes of the seven-second video of a pig wearing a harness and apparently on board a train in France, which led us to multiple Reddit posts, here and here, sharing the video, calling it fake news.

We then transcribed the audio heard in the video, which, when translated from French, stated: “It’s the, it’s the. I know, but… Come on, come on, please, please. Are you kidding me?”

Similarly, we came across this fact-check report by Washington-based Radio Free Asia on the viral video, dated March 26, 2025. According to the report, the Asia Fact-Checking Lab (AFCL) shared the video with a French native speaker for identification, who said that the woman with a backpack in the video said in French: “It’s an animal, it has rights, it has a leash.” From the above evidence, it appears that the video shows an exchange between passengers protesting against a woman bringing her pet pig onto a train.

Although we could not definitively conclude the context of the conversations in both videos, there was no mention of Muslims or any communal angle, neither in the transcriptions nor across the reports, further proving that they are being shared with false claims.

We have reached out to reporters based out of France regarding the viral narrative and will update this article once we receive a response.

Also Read: Viral Image Showing Iranian Police HQ On Fire After Israeli Attack Is Old

Conclusion

Viral videos falsely claim that women in Italy and France are adopting pigs as pets to avoid harassment by Muslim men.