Macron's united front after 'le shove': Couple walk arm-in-arm as he tried to pass off squabble on plane as 'playfighting'
27 May 2025, 14:02 | Updated: 27 May 2025, 14:11
The Macrons have put on a united front days after a video emerged appearing to show the French first lady Brigitte shoving the French President Emmanuel in the face.
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The interaction was caught on camera as the couple arrived in Vietnam as part of a tour of south-east Asia.
The President says he and his wife were "simply joking" after the video went viral on social media.
In the clip, Mr Macron steps back, looking shocked, before collecting himself and waving at the camera as they exit the plane.
The Elysee initially claimed the images were fake, before later confirming they were in fact legitimate.
An official has denied the couple - who have been married since 2007 - were arguing.
Mr Macron later told reporters that the couple - who met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher - were simply joking around.
"We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife," he said, adding that the incident was being overblown: "It becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe."
His office earlier offered a similar explanation.
"It was a moment where the President and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by horsing around. It's a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists," his office said.
When asked about the incident, Mr Macron insisted he was "simply joking with my wife as we often do".
Speaking to French media in Hanoi, he dismissed suggestions there had been a “domestic incident”, accusing online trolls of spouting “nonsense.”
“It was nothing,” he added.
The French president went on to outline his frustration with constantly having to explain himself over videos shared online.
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It comes after Russian media falsely accused him and Sir Keir Starmer of sitting at a table with a bag of cocaine.
"I haven't got lots of time to spare," Mr Macron said.
"And yet, I'm spending a lot of time explaining the interpretation of these types of videos.
"It's been three weeks, from Kyiv, to Tirana, and now Hanoi, there are people who have watched videos and believe that I've shared a packet of cocaine, had a head-to-head with the Turkish president, and now that I'm having a domestic with my wife.
"None of these things are true - however the videos are real."
An Elysee spokesperson said: "It was a moment when the president and his wife were relaxing one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh.”
Brigitte Macron was Brigitte Auziere, a married mother of three children, when she met at Mr Macron's high school.
A teacher, she supervised the drama club where Emmanuel Macron, a literature lover, was a member.
He moved to Paris for his last year of high school, but promised to marry Brigitte.
She later moved to the French capital to join him and divorced before they finally married.
