The French president, Emmanuel Macron, denied on Monday to have a domestic dispute with his wife Brigitte after a video seemed to show her moving away from her face when they landed for a visit to Vietnam, blaming disinformation campaigns for trying to make a false meaning in the images.
Elysee had expected the visit to Vietnam to exhibit the scope of France in the Indo-Pacific, but it has been shaded by the incident that occurred when the doors of the presidential plane opened after landing in Hanoi on Sunday.
This is the third time this month in which Macron has been the subject of viral video images at a time when France says that it is being target of repeated misinformation attacks as Russia intensifies attacks against Ukraine.
It was falsely affirmed that Macron led Cocaine on a trip to kyiv along with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and the images also arose that they intended to show the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dominate the French leader in a manual.
Brigitte takes both hands and gives her husband’s face a push, according to images filmed by The Association press news agency.
The French president seems startled, but quickly recovers and turns to greet through the open door. But with most of his body hidden by the plane, it is impossible to see his wife’s facial expression or body language.
“My wife and I were playing, we were joking, and I was surprised,” he said. It is now “becoming a kind of planetary catastrophe, and some are even inventing theories,” Macron told journalists.
‘Calmate’
Macron referred to the other incidents, including the images taken on a train to Kyiv, where some accounts falsely claimed that he shared cocaine with Merz and Starmer.
But the object that Macron eliminated the table when the medium entered was a fabric. Erdogan, meanwhile, was filmed with the president’s finger at a summit.
“For three weeks … there are people who have seen videos and think that I shared a cocaine bag, that I had a fight with the Turkish president, and now I am having a domestic dispute with my wife,” Macron said. “None of these is true. They all need to calm down.”
After the incident in Hanoi, the couple advanced on the stairs for the official welcome of the Vietnamese officials, although Brigitte Macron did not take her husband’s arm when she offered it.
The video circulated quickly online, particularly promoted by accounts that are usually hostile for the French leader.
The Macron office initially denied the authenticity of the images, before it is confirmed as genuine. Later, a nearby partner of the president described the incident as the harmless “dispute” of a couple.
‘Nothing else’
Referring to past incidents, Macron said: “In these three videos, I took a handkerchief, shook someone’s hand and joked with my wife, as we do often. Nothing more.
“We have many accounts, anonymous or not, whose frustrations go to their heads, including the news commentators who said this morning that I have the diplomacy of a beaten man,” he added.
He stressed that the three videos were “completely authentic”, but the meanings attributed to them were not.
Vietnam is the first stop on the tour of almost a week of Macron through Southeast Asia, where he will present France as a reliable alternative to the United States and China. You will also visit Indonesia and Singapore.
The relationship between Macron, 47, and his 72 -year -old wife have been an issue of fascination at home and abroad.
She was a drama teacher and he was a student when they met at a private school in her hometown of Amiens in the northeast of France. A mother of three children, Brigitte divorced her husband and began a relationship with Macron while he was in his adolescence.
A high profile first lady has taken legal measures to counteract false claims on social networks about their gender.
