The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, was recently embarrassed by his own wife, Brigitte, after she appeared to slap him on the face in public.
In a viral video currently circulating on X (https://x.com/Bruno_Attal_/status/1926810113504895158), President Macron was seen attempting to get off the plane when his wife suddenly struck his face.
Footage shot by the Associated Press news agency in Hanoi showed Emmanuel’s plane door opening to reveal him, but to everyone’s surprise, his wife’s arms suddenly emerged from the left of the open doorway, landing on her husband’s face.
Macron, despite being startled, quickly recovered and turned to wave through the open door, but Brigitte was blocked by the aircraft’s body, making it impossible to see her facial expression or body language.
The French leader did his best to stylishly prevent the public from noticing what happened, but it had already been captured on camera.
Infact, after the couple moved down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese officials, Brigitte Macron refused to take her husband’s offered arm.
Reacting to the incident, the French President’s office immediately downplayed the slap, stressing that it was a moment of togetherness.
Initially denying the authenticity of the images before confirming it as genuine, a close associate of the president described the incident as a harmless squabble by the couple.
Another member of his entourage further downplayed the significance of the incident, tagging it a joke between the president and his wife.
“It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around,” he said.
Blaming pro-Russian accounts for negative comments about the situation, he reiterated that it was a moment of togetherness.
“It’s a moment of togetherness. No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,” he added.
