French President Emmanuel Macron slapped by wife in shock video
French president Emmanuel Macron has publicly addressed bizarre video of a physical altercation with his wife Brigitte on a plane during their arrival in Vietnam.
World
Don't miss out on the headlines from World. Followed categories will be added to My News.
French President Emmanuel Macron has played down the video of him being shoved in the face by his wife Brigitte Macron as the pair appeared to be “bickering” inside the presidential plane.
Vision filmed by the Associated Press news agency in Hanoi on Sunday evening (Monday AEST) emerged showing what appeared to be a tiff between the pair as they were preparing to disembark an aeroplane upon arrival into Vietnam.
But Mr Macron later told reporters the pair were merely “fooling around”.
“We were bickering – or rather just fooling around – with my wife, but to my surprise, it turned into some kind of geopolitical catastrophe ,” he said, in a translation from the French.
“People are saying all sorts of nonsense. Everyone just needs to calm down”.
When the aircraft’s door opened Mr Macron, 47, was seen standing alone and turned sideways and then his wife Brigitte’s arms appeared and she used both hands to push him in the face.
The rest of her body is not visible in the footage making it difficult to determine what happened moments before the incident but he later admitted he was shocked by the incident. His head flicked back after his wife pushed him in the face.
As they walk off the aircraft Mr Macron puts his right arm out for his wife to take but she dismisses him and instead opts to hold the handrail as she goes down the stairs.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova seized on the footage, writing on Telegram that the president had received “a right hook”.
“Did the first lady decide to cheer up her husband with a gentle pat on the cheek and miscalculated her strength?” she asked in a mocking post. “Did she want to fix his collar but ended up reaching the beloved face?. “Here’s a hint: maybe it was the ‘hand of the Kremlin’.”
The pair arrived in Vietnam at the beginning of their tour through south East Asia.
Initial reports claimed the office of the president, the Elysee, tried to dispute that the vision was real before French media later clarified that it was legitimate footage.
Mr Macron can be seen recovering from the push then walking to the aircraft’s doorway where he sees the media, and smiles and waves to the waiting cameras.
His wife follows him down the staircase and onto the tarmac.
In French newspaper Le Monde it reported that: “Another member of his entourage downplayed the significance of the incident.
“It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around,” the unnamed source told reporters.
“It’s a moment of togetherness.
“No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists”.
Mr Macron was in Hanoi to begin a week-long tour where he will also visit Indonesia and Singapore.
The French leader has repeatedly been targeted by conspiracy theories and deepfakes.
He previously had to deny “false and fabricated” rumours his wife was born a man, dubbing the transgender claims as being typified misogynistic online attacks on women.
And recently he blasted a fake Russian claim that he had a bag of cocaine on the table when he was pictured on his way to Kyiv with Keir Starmer and Germany’s Friedrich Merz.
Originally published as French President Emmanuel Macron slapped by wife in shock video