A clip showing Brigitte Macron appearing to shove the French president in the face went viral, with local media initially reporting that the Élysée Palace had dismissed the video as “fake”. This statement was later corrected, though Macron downplayed the moment as mere “horsing around” with his wife. Online reactions, however, have been largely negative, ranging from accusations of domestic violence to mocking the incident. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Emmanuel Macron has denied he and his wife, Brigitte, had an altercation after a viral video promoted by Russian state media and French far-right accounts appeared to show her pushing him in the face as they prepared to get off a plane in Vietnam.
The video, shot by an Associated Press camera operator, shows the French president appearing in the doorway of the plane at the start of a visit to Hanoi. His wife’s hand appears to shove him, causing him to step back before recovering and waving.
Brigitte Macron’s body is not visible and her husband told reporters afterwards the gesture was playful. But the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, seized on the footage, writing on Telegram that the president had received “a right hook”.
Macron noted that other videos of him had been misinterpreted. People “have thought I shared a bag of cocaine, tussled with the Turkish president, now that I’m having a domestic dispute with my wife … None of this is true. Everyone needs to calm down,” he said.
Zakharova and the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones this month wrongly accused Macron, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, of using drugs on a train to Kyiv, claiming a crumpled tissue was a bag of cocaine.
Macron told reporters in Hanoi the internet accounts making the claims were “familiar”, allying Russians with French extremists, adding that commentators had “explained this morning that my diplomacy was that of a battered husband”.
France and Vietnam on Monday signed deals on Airbus planes, defence and other pacts worth €9bn (£7.55bn) as the Macrons embarked on the first formal visit by a French presidential couple to the country’s former colony in nearly a decade.
