Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, has publicly responded to a widely circulated video that purports to show his wife, Brigitte Macron, hitting him in the face.
The 47-year-old is seen standing at the aircraft door at Hanoi Airport in the crazy video, which was taken by the Associated Press.
Brigitte’s hands are seen reaching in what appears to be a quick shove towards her husband’s face as the door opens.
Before the couple ascends the stairs, the French President abruptly turns and waves to the waiting media, as if taken aback. Then, his wife is seen refusing to accept his arm offer.
Take a look at the moment below:
Men, including French far-right commentators and Russian state media, made numerous accusations and conjectures after the video swiftly went viral on social media and news sites.
Macron later acknowledged the authenticity of the video but maintained that it was taken out of context after the Élysée Palace initially rejected it as likely “fake news.”
According to News.com.au, Macron stated, “There’s a video showing me joking and teasing my wife, and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe, with people even coming up with theories to explain it.”
“I was taken aback by the fact that we were joking around, and that turned into a geopolitical catastrophe,” he added. It’s absurd. People interpret things in a variety of foolish ways.
An Élysée Palace spokesperson echoed the President’s comments, according to The Guardian, calling the encounter “a moment of complicity” and saying the couple was “decompressing one last time” before starting their official engagements in Southeast Asia.
The video did not show Brigitte’s face, and the palace also stated that conspiracy theorists had taken advantage of the fleeting moment. One palace source claimed, “It wasn’t even a slap.”
The video is the second time that viral disinformation campaigns have targeted Macron.
During a diplomatic train trip to Kyiv with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a previous video falsely claimed the French president was using cocaine.
Online, the video, which showed Macron grabbing a tissue from a table, was portrayed as an attempt to conceal drugs.
The rumor was quickly refuted by French officials, who said that the item in question was just a tissue “for blowing your nose” and denounced the claims as part of a purposeful disinformation campaign.
“Disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs when European unity becomes inconvenient,” the statement said. The enemies of France are disseminating this false information both domestically and internationally. We have to be on the lookout for manipulation.
Macron said that 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” in response to the series of misconstrued videos.
“This is all untrue. “Everyone needs to relax,” he said.
