Kylie Lang: There are double standards when it comes to Emmanuel Macron’s wife

The French President’s tarmac tussle sparks debate on gender roles, power dynamics, and the dangerous normalisation of aggression in high-profile relationships, writes Kylie Lang.

Imagine if French President Emmanuel Macron had pushed his wife in the face. Would it be shrugged off as a joke? Or would he be charged with a crime, forced to vacate political office and be remembered as a domestic violence perpetrator?

We will never know because it didn’t play out this way, but that doesn’t make the incident this week when first lady Brigitte Macron did the pushing any less disturbing.

Shame on both of them.

It’s true that no one really knows what goes on behind closed doors, but when the door is wide open, we see what we see.

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron disembark an aircraft upon arrival in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

A president standing near the exit of a plane and ready to disembark when his face is grabbed and shoved backwards by his wife of nearly 28 years.

He is shaken but after realising cameras are capturing the encounter quickly makes like a penguin in the 2005 kids’ movie Madagascar and does his best “smile and wave boys” impersonation.

But it’s what happens next that really disgusts me.

Failing to read the room – which in this case is the world stage – Macron’s spin doctors label the footage a deepfake.

It hasn’t occurred, in other words, but is the nefarious work of artificial intelligence.

When that doesn’t fly – because, hello, the photographers on the tarmac are real people – the French government downplays it as “a moment of closeness” between the presidential pair.

We are meant to swallow that they are “decompressing” and “larking around” before the Vietnam visit officially begins.

Again, completely unbelievable. Even for the French.

But when Macron finally opens his own mouth and tries to explain away what happened, he does himself and, most importantly, victims of domestic and family violence everywhere a grave disservice.

He and his wife had been “bickering or, rather, joking” and to make anything more of it is somehow silly. “This is all a bit of nonsense,” he says.

Nonsense?

How dare he make light of such a thing, and by so doing diminish the experiences of others who are bullied, assaulted or belittled by their partner.

It reminds me of when police officers, not so long ago in this country, wouldn’t bother responding to a call for help because it was “just a domestic”.

Kylie Lang believes there are double standards when it comes to the face-shove incident on the French President.

We’ve moved on, and Macron needs to get with the times. Intimate partner violence is a serious matter. In Australia, it’s women who are most often at the receiving end, making up around three-quarters of all reported incidents, according to federal government data.

But men are victims too, accounting for the remaining 25 percent, with suggestions the figure could be higher as men are less inclined to admit or report it.

Why? Because they are ashamed and think it makes them appear weak or somehow less masculine. Could this explain Macron’s unwillingness to be upfront about the face shove?

He does have an image to upkeep.

But this was definitely not a playful exchange. If it had been, Brigitte would have accepted her husband’s arm as they disembarked. Instead, she brushed him off.

According to a lip-reader, Brigitte said, “Dégage, espèce de loser” – “Go away, you loser”.

Doesn’t sound funny to me.

This couple is used to being in the spotlight and knows the drill of appearing dignified so something tells me this “nonsense” is not a one-off.

France's President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron talk to Singapore's President Tharman Shanmugaratnam (R) as they arrive for a state lunch in Singapore on May 30, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

The dynamics, many would say, have been off-kilter from the outset.

She was his 39-year-old teacher and he was her 15-year-old student.

Already a mother of three, she has been accused of grooming him while he has often said their union was meant to be.

Justify it however you want, but there is no justification whatsoever for assaulting your partner – whether they are the president of France or a woman living in any suburb in any country.

Macron’s political adversaries must have been popping champagne corks all week over this.

At the very least, the French President should have had the spine to state that what happened was an incident of which the couple was not proud.

To shrug it off as a joke – and expect the rest of the world to be stupid enough to believe it – is disgraceful.

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Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail
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Originally published as Kylie Lang: There are double standards when it comes to Emmanuel Macron’s wife