Since the beginning of May this year, social networks across Africa and its Diaspora have been saturated with photos and videos showing horrified people demonstrating the presence of plastic in food items, like rice and eggs. Yet most of these videos don’t have a grain of truth (or plastic) in them. Alexandre Capron, a French journalist and member of the Observer Team of France24 (OTF), has looked into the origins of these conspiracy theories and how their propagation has led to calls for increased protectionism and conflated nationalism in different countries across the continent.