Face-shove by wife on foreign tour a joke: Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron dismissed a viral video showing his wife, Brigitte, seemingly pushing his face away upon arrival in Hanoi as playful banter. Macron attributed the incident and other recent viral videos, including false claims of cocaine use and a strained handshake with Turkey’s president, to disinformation campaigns.

HANOI: They were just playfighting. That was French PresidentEmmanuel Macron‘s explanation after a video appeared to show his wife Brigitte shoving his face away when they touched down for a visit to Vietnam.The incident occurred as the doors of the presidential plane swung open after landing in Hanoi Sunday. Brigitte sticks out both her hands and gives her husband’s face a shove, shows footage shot by AP news agency. Macron appears startled but quickly recovers and turns to wave through the open door. With most of her body hidden by the aircraft, it is impossible to see Brigitte’s expression or body language.“My wife and I were squabbling, we were rather joking, and I was taken by surprise,” Macron said. Now it’s “become a kind of planetary catastrophe”, he added, blaming disinformation campaigns for trying to put false meaning on the footage. agenciesMacron has been subject of viral video footage for third time this month In subsequent images, Macron and his wife, wearing a red jacket, appeared at the top of the stairs. He offered an arm but she didn’t take it. They walked down the carpeted stairs side by side.This is the third time this month that Macron has been the subject of viral video footage at a time when France says it is being targeted by repeated disinformation attacks as Russia steps up attacks on Ukraine. It was falsely claimed Macron took cocaine on a trip to Kyiv alongside British PM 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.Macron testily referred to the other incidents, including the images shot on a train to Kyiv where some accounts falsely claimed he shared cocaine with Merz and Starmer. But the object Macron removed from the table when the media entered was a tissue. Erdogan, meanwhile, was filmed holding the president’s finger at a summit.“For three weeks… there are people who have watched videos and think I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a fight with the Turkish president, and that now I’m having a domestic dispute with my wife,” said Macron. “None of these are true. Everyone needs to calm down.”After the incident in Hanoi, the couple proceeded down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese officials, though Brigitte Macron did not take her husband’s arm when he offered it. The video circulated rapidly online.Macron’s office initially denied the authenticity of the images, before they were confirmed as genuine. A close associate of the president later described the incident as a couple’s harmless “squabble”. Referring to the past incidents, Macron said: “In these three videos I took a tissue, shook someone’s hand and just joked with my wife, as we do quite often. Nothing more.” He emphasised that all three videos were “completely authentic” but the meanings attached to them were not.The relationship between Macron, 47, and his 72-year-old wife has long been a subject of fascination at home and abroad. A mother of three children, Brigitte divorced her husband and began a relationship with Macron while he was in his late teens. A high-profile first lady, she has taken legal action to counter false claims on social media about her gender.