France Restaurant Customers Dine on Calmly Amid Raging Fire, Become 'This is Fine' Meme IRL

A group of unfazed diners in France recently became the living embodiment of the ‘this is fine’ meme. A wild scene has been going viral on Twitter, showing people at a French restaurant calmly eating and carrying on their business as fires burned just outside. Though many people on Twitter questioned the authenticity of the video, as per French publication Libération, the incident did indeed happen.

Initially shared by one Arnaud Bertrand on Twitter on March 20, the video was claimed to have been from Lyon. Later, Bertrand corrected himself and stated that the scene was actually from Stromboli in Saint-Etienne.

The Stromboli confirmed to Libération that the incident took place at their restaurant and said that they were amused to see how viral it had gone on the Internet. They said that the diners went about their business as the atmosphere was calm and the garbage cans were burning outside. There were firefighters present, which reassured the diners who went on eating like “nothing had happened".

For the uninitiated, the ‘this is fine’ meme involves a dog in a hat sitting at a table while flames rage all around it, trying to convince itself that everything is fine and normal. Two other memes were also invoked. One was the child on a swing as a fire rages nearby and the other was the child giving an ‘evil smirk’ as a building goes up in fire. The situation also brings to mind ‘Nero fiddling while Rome burns’.

Local news channel Télévision Loire 7 reported that there were several hundreds demonstrating at the Place Jean-Jaurès and police used tear gas to disperse them. Protests are raging in France over an increase in retirement age. In fact, French president Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived no-confidence votes over the issue but remained defiant, as per AFP.

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