Thailand says photo of Macron kneeling before King Vajiralongkorn is AI-generated

Thailand's foreign ministry denied on Thursday 2 July that French President Emmanuel Macron knelt before King Maha Vajiralongkorn during the monarch's state visit to Paris this week, after an AI-generated picture circulated online, according to an Agence France-Presse report carried by the South China Morning Post.

The fabricated image purported to show Mr Macron kneeling before the Thai king while presenting awards. One Thai-language social media post carrying the picture had gained more than 40,000 likes and over 2,000 shares by 3 July, per the AFP report, and the image was shared by a page with more than two million followers known for pro-military and nationalist content. The Straits Times also carried the ministry's denial.

The doctored scene traded on a real event. During a state dinner at the presidential palace, Mr Macron presented the 73-year-old king with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, France's highest award, while Queen Suthida received the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit, per the report. The trip by King Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida was the first official visit by a Thai monarch to France since 1960, marking the 170th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Background

Images of the Thai monarchy are an acutely sensitive matter in Thailand, where the king occupies a constitutionally exalted position and the lese-majeste law, Section 112 of the criminal code, provides for prison terms of up to 15 years per count for insulting the king, queen, heir or regent. That legal and cultural context gives an official denial of a viral royal image a weight it would not carry in most countries, and explains the foreign ministry's decision to rebut the picture publicly.

King Vajiralongkorn, who came to the throne in 2016 on the death of his father Bhumibol Adulyadej and was crowned in 2019, travels abroad on state visits far less frequently than most reigning monarchs, which lent the Paris trip unusual prominence. The anniversary being marked traces to the mid-nineteenth century treaties that opened formal relations between Siam and France. The episode also illustrates a now-familiar pattern in which generative AI imagery attaches itself to genuine diplomatic events and spreads faster than corrections.

What comes next

The foreign ministry's denial stands as the Thai government's position on the record. The material supplied does not indicate whether Thai authorities intend to pursue the originators of the image or seek its removal, and any such step would be for Bangkok to announce; coverage of the remainder of the royal couple's engagements in France will show whether the episode intrudes further on the visit.