The brief but widely circulated footage shows Macron stepping out of a plane in Hanoi on Sunday evening as part of a state visit to Vietnam.
As he emerges at the aircraft doorway, Brigitte Macron's hands suddenly reach out and shove his face. The president appears momentarily startled but quickly regains his composure and waves to the press waiting on the tarmac.
Speaking to reporters in Hanoi on Monday, Macron, who is 24 years younger than his 72-year-old wife, sought to clarify the situation: 'There's a video showing me joking and teasing my wife, and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe,' he said. 'We were just joking around, as we do quite often.'
SHOCKING: French President Emmanuel Macron SHOVED IN THE FACE by his wife Brigitte as they exit a plane in Vietnam! This looks like an EXTREMELY toxic relationship. Imagine your husband leading a nation, trying to stand up to powerhouses like Putin & Trump & his toxic wife… pic.twitter.com/7PWc1CkaG7
â€" Tehseen Poonawalla Official 🇮🇳 (@tehseenp) May 26, 2025
The Élysée Palace, after initially downplaying the footage, later explained that the couple were 'unwinding' and 'playfully teasing each other' ahead of the start of their formal engagements.
A presidential source quoted by CNN described the incident as 'a moment of closeness,' adding: 'No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists.'
Macron, who has increasingly found himself the target of disinformation campaigns linked to Russia, criticised the amplification of the clip by what he described as a familiar ecosystem of online actors.
'People have 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.
Earlier this month, the Élysée also refuted another viral claim, circulated by pro-Kremlin accounts and U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, that Macron was using cocaine aboard a train to Kyiv with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The claim stemmed from a crumpled tissue seen in footage. French officials responded by posting an image with the caption: 'This is a tissue. For blowing your nose.'
As the disinformation swirl continued, Macron emphasised the importance of not letting such moments overshadow diplomacy.
'Commentators even explained this morning that my diplomacy was that of a battered husband,' he joked.
Meanwhile, the president's Southeast Asia trip continued on a more serious note. France and Vietnam signed €9 billion worth of deals on Monday, covering sectors including aerospace, defense, energy, transportation, and pharmaceuticals.
Among them was an agreement for Vietnam to purchase 20 Airbus aircraft â€" part of efforts to boost bilateral ties amid growing trade instability linked to U.S. tariffs under Donald Trump's administration.
The visit marks the first formal state trip to Vietnam by a French presidential couple in nearly a decade.
Wycliffe Nyamasege
Source : https://en.igihe.com/news/article/it-was-a-joke-president-macron-shrugs-off-viral-push-from-wife
