French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday denied having a domestic dispute with his wife Brigitte after a video appeared to show her shoving his face away when they touched down for a visit to Vietnam, blaming disinformation campaigns for trying to put false meaning on the footage.
The Elysee Palace had been hoping that the visit to Vietnam would showcase France’s reach into the Indo-Pacific region, but it has been shadowed by the incident which occurred as the doors of the presidential plane swung open after landing in Hanoi on Sunday.
It is the third time this month that Emmanuel Macron has been the subject of viral video footage at a time when France says it is being targeted by repeated disinformation campaigns as Russia steps up attacks on Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
It was falsely claimed Emmanuel Macron took cocaine on a trip to Kyiv alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and images also emerged purporting to show Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dominate the French leader in a handshake.
In Hanoi, Brigitte Macron sticks out both her hands and gives her husband’s face a shove, according to footage shot by The Associated Press.
The French president appears startled, but quickly recovers and turns to wave through the open door, but with most of her body hidden by the aircraft, it is impossible to see his wife’s facial expression or body language.
“My wife and I were squabbling, we were rather joking, and I was taken by surprise,” he said.
Now it’s “become a kind of planetary catastrophe, and some are even coming up with theories,” Emmanuel Macron told reporters.
Emmanuel Macron testily referred to the other incidents, including the images shot on the train to Kyiv where some accounts falsely claimed he shared cocaine, but the object he removed from the table when the media entered was a tissue.
Erdogan was filmed holding the president’s finger at a summit.
“None of these are true,” Emmanuel Macron said of the videos. “Everyone needs to calm down.”
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