First, French officials tried to say video of French President Emmanuel Macron being shoved in the face by his wife, Brigitte Macron, was fake news.
Then, they decided to explain away Macron being shoved in the face as the two being playful.
Video emerged of Macron standing inside his official plane after it arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday. As preparations were made for him and his wife to descend, a hand appeared from outside the video frame and pushed Macron’s jaw.
The arm shown in that moment had the same color jacket as Macron’s wife, but her face never appeared in the frame.
French Pres. Emmanuel Macron appeared to be pushed in the face by his wife Brigitte Macron as they arrived in Vietnam, the first stop of a Southeast Asia tour. https://t.co/nqzICGPpeY pic.twitter.com/VQnNSpMm1K
— ABC News (@ABC) May 26, 2025
The French president then turned to wave as he realized he was on camera, according to the video posted to X.
Moments later, Macron and his wife made their official descent. As they left the plane, Macron appeared to offer his arm to his wife, but she ignored the gesture.
Macron’s office initially denied the clip was authentic, according to CBS.
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Then one source said that the couple had been having a “squabble.”
A source that spoke to CNN framed the incident as the two bickering.
The official explanation eventually framed the incident as part of a lighthearted moment.
“It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around,” CBS reported that the media was told by a source connected with Macron’s office.
“It’s a moment of togetherness. No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,” the source said.
Macron also resorted to that explanation when he addressed the incident to the media.
“We are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife,” Macron said Monday, according to the New York Post. “People are saying all sorts of nonsense. Everyone needs to calm down.”
“We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife,” he explained, according to CBS.
“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,” he said, according to CNN.
“The videos are all real, and yes, sometimes people tamper with them, but people are attributing all kinds of nonsense to them.”
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