By Leena Nasir
French President Emmanuel Macron downplayed an incident involving his wife in which she appeared to aggressively shove him in the face with both hands.
A viral video appeared to show Brigitte Macron using both hands to push Macron in the face Sunday, just moments before they disembarked from their plane to begin a tour of Southeast Asia. As a uniformed man pulled open the aircraft door, Macron was seen standing inside, speaking to someone off-camera. Suddenly, two arms clad in red sleeves reached out—one hand covering his mouth and part of his nose, the other striking him squarely on the jaw. Macron recoiled, turned his head away, then seemed to realize he was on camera. He quickly regained his composure, offered a brief smile, and gave a quick wave.
French President Emmanuel Macron shoved in face by wife Brigitte in front of world’s media 😳 pic.twitter.com/R1pnj4DIL6
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) May 26, 2025
Macron and his wife then appeared at the top of the stairs, where he offered her his arm, but she didn’t take it. They walked down the stairs side-by-side.
Macron responded to the clip that quickly gained traction online.
He downplayed the interaction as simple horseplay, and told reporters he and his wife were just joking around, claiming they were “bickering and rather, joking around,” something, he said, “we often do,” according to The New York Times.
“I’m surprised by it, it turns into some kind of global catastrophe where people are even coming up with theories to explain it,” Macron said Monday. “It’s nonsense.”
He referenced a video of a lingering handshake with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting in Tirana, Albania, as another instance of misinformation in the press.
WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 1: French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron react to the crowd on the South Lawn of the White House during an official state visit on December 01, 2022 in Washington, DC. President Biden is welcoming Macron for the first official state visit of the Biden administration. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“It’s been three weeks – if you look at the international agenda of the president of the French Republic, from Kyiv to Tirana to Hanoi, there are people who have watched the videos and believe that I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a ‘mano a mano’ with a Turkish president and that right now I’m having a fight with my wife. None of this is true,” Macron told reporters, according to The New York Times. (RELATED: France Pushes Back After Viral Posts Online Spread Rumors About Macron’s Meeting In Ukraine)
“So everyone needs to calm down and focus on the real news.”
The couple have a 25-year age gap and been married since 2007. They first met when Brigitte was a teacher at Macron’s high school. She was married with three children at the time.
Macron’s visit to Vietnam marks the first time a French president has attended the region in a decade. The countries signed deals on Airbus planes and defense as France seeks to bolster its influence amid risks of high U.S. tariffs.
