A lover’s quarrel between French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife has been blown into the open after video footage showed Brigitte Macron appearing to put both hands on her husband’s face and shove him violently.
The video, shot by a camera operator with the Associated Press, has become an awkward moment for Macron, already accustomed to having parts of his private life spill into sensational news stories. Although he has denied that the couple were fighting, many viewers online think it’s plainly obvious that Brigitte was upset over something.
In the clip, Macron can be seen standing inside his plane and talking to Brigitte, who is concealed behind the jet’s exterior. Suddenly, both hands come into focus, gripping around Macro’s mouth and chin and shoving his head backward.
Almost immediately, Macron looks out the exit and begins walking before looking back to make sure his wife is not far behind. He waves for the camera as the two set foot in Hanoi.
The incident was spotlighted by Russian state-run media, with foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova declaring that Macron received a “right hook” from his wife. That claim was amplified by right-wing French critics of the centrist leader.
“Did the first lady decide to cheer up her husband with a gentle pat on the cheek and miscalculate her strength?” Zakharova asked in a mocking social media post. “Did she want to fix his collar but ended up reaching the beloved face?” Zakharova added, after the Russia Today TV channel and associated social media accounts had repeatedly aired the clip.
A short time later, Macron claimed he and his wife were “joking around, as we do quite often” while an official with his administration told French media that the episode revealed “a moment of closeness. But that was enough to feed the conspiracy theorists.”
Another claimed the presidential couple were “decompressing one last time before the start of the visit, larking around.” Macron “loves playing jokes on his wife before official occasions, and she always responds like this … It wasn’t even a slap,” they added.
Macron’s alleged quarrel is the second videoed controversy to befall the French leader in a matter of weeks.
During a recent meeting several foreign leaders, Macron appeared to wave his hand across the table and hide a plastic bag filled with white powder as reporters entered the room.
The media has “thought I shared a bag of cocaine, tussled with the Turkish president, now that I’m having a domestic dispute with my wife … None of this is true. Everyone needs to calm down,” he said.
Macron told the Daily Mail that he was “familiar” with the accounts making hay out of the latest incident involving his wife, and that Russian media outlets were piling on in order to declare his “diplomacy was that of a battered husband.”
The French president was in Hanoi on Monday to sign significant deals related to Airbus planes, defense, and other goods and services purchased by Vietnam. It was Macron’s first formal visit to the former French colony in nearly a decade.
