French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, the 26th of May, dismissed an incident with his wife, saying a video showing him and his wife Brigitte obviously arguing was just “joking around”, according to Politico and Reuters.
From the looks of it, the footage taken on Sunday shows Brigitte Macron lightly punching her husband in the face shortly before getting off the plane in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The French leader seems surprised at first, then turns to the delegation and waves. Before going down the ramp, he appears to offer his wife his hand, which she rejects.
French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped by his wife during a family dispute that was caught on camera.
The incident occurred shortly after the French presidential plane landed in Vietnam.
What exactly enraged his wife remains unclear. pic.twitter.com/O8bnm4wVMC
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 26, 2025
Asked about the incident, which was widely reported on Monday, Macron told reporters that what had happened had been exaggerated.
“The video shows me bickering, or rather joking around, with my wife, which I am surprised about afterwards. It is being turned into a sort of global mess where everyone has their own theory about it,” he told reporters. “It was nothing.”
Several French news sources reported that Macron’s office initially dismissed the video, filmed by the Associated Press, as fake news, but then retracted the reports. Social media accounts hostile to Macron used the video to their advantage, which is likely to have prompted the President’s office to initially deny the video.
One of Macron’s aides, who was granted anonymity, said it was enough to “trigger the conspiracy theorists”. Another adviser blamed the pro-Russian media for hyping the video.
Macron said that although the video was real, the reaction on the internet was reminiscent of recent unsubstantiated allegations against the French President, including that he was doing cocaine on a train to Kyiv with European leaders or that he had a special handshake with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“People use videos to spread a lot of nonsense,” he added.
On Monday, a French presidential office official said of the video: “It was a moment when the President and his wife were relaxing, laughing for the last time before their trip.”
“It was a moment of closeness.”
The couple have been married since 2007.