French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife were involved in a physical altercation while arriving for a diplomatic overseas trip this weekend.
The incident has sent the couple into damage control, despite the footage of the incident going viral.
On Sunday, shortly before Macron and his wife, Brigitte, de-boarded the presidential plane in Vietnam, he is seen receiving a violent, two-handed shove to the face from the first lady. The couple had just arrived in Hanoi for a state visit.
The video revealed the door to the plane open, with the 47-year-old president partially visible standing nearby. He appeared to be talking to someone out of view.
Then, out of nowhere, the hands of his 72-year-old wife connected with her husband’s mouth and shoved his face.
Here’s the footage from the scene:
Bizarre moment Emmanuel Macron is slapped by his wife Brigitte pic.twitter.com/kYsE5MCDV1
— The Sun (@TheSun) May 26, 2025
Facing an open door and stunned as to what just happened, Macron appeared to realize that his wife’s slap was caught on camera and seen by onlookers.
He gave a little wave before stepping out of view of the open doorway.
When they emerged, the first lady ignored Macrons as he extended his arm to help escort her down the stairs to be welcomed by Vietnamese officials.
Clearly something happened. But Macron’s office is downplaying the entire event, even suggessting it was not authentic video.
According to the New York Post, Macron’s office initially denied the authenticity of the video. They since admitted that the footage was real, but it’s not what you think.
“Everyone needs to calm down,” Macron said.
The French president also told reporters, “There’s a video showing me joking and teasing my wife and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe, with people even coming up with theories to explain it. We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife.”
An insider from Macron’s team also tried to spin the slap as nothing more than being playful.
“It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around,” a source close to the president said.
“It’s a moment of togetherness. No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,” the source added, even going as far as accusing pro-Russian disinformation accounts of spinning the clip.
Macron was touring Southeast Asia over the weekend. But his trip will almost certainly be remembered for what happened with his wife.