The news channel CNN indicated that Strasbourg was in Germany in a small location label on the upper right corner of the screen. A user on Reddit spotted the error and shared it on Wednesday, January 16, the same day the interview took place. Strasbourg is in fact in eastern France.
Frans Timmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission, was on CNN to discuss British Parliament’s rejection of the Brexit deal and the looming Brexit deadline. The Commission is primarily based in Brussels, Belgium, but it sometimes operates in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, France, where European Parliament is located.
“This error may have been caused by the confusion between France’s Strasbourg and the small German town of Strasburg, population 5,000, which is located in Mecklembourg-Poméranie-Occidentale,” the site Franceinfo suggested. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, as the region is called in German, is in the northeast part of Germany. Strasburg, it’s worth noting, has nothing to do with the European Commission.
This is not the first time CNN has taken its liberties with French geography. In 2005, during a period of riots in the Paris suburbs, CNN placed the majority of French cities in neighboring countries. Strasbourg had been moved to Germany, Toulouse to Switzerland, and Lyon had been relocated to the Massif Central.
As for the city of Cannes, it had been placed in the southwest of France. But at the time, it had not yet crossed the southern border… until 2011 when it was placed in Spain.
