An incident that happened before Emmanuel Macron even got off the plane went viral very quickly.
French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken out over a startling video that went viral and seemed to show his wife Brigitte “slapping” him before they got off the plane.
The couple started their South-East Asia tour yesterday when they landed in Hanoi, Vietnam. They will also make stops in Indonesia and Singapore.
Their visit is the first time a French president has visited Vietnam in almost ten years, and it is also Macron’s first official visit.
Nevertheless, this was slightly eclipsed by an incident that occurred before the president even got off the plane.
Macron stood near the plane’s egress while workers unlocked the door, according to Associated Press footage.
They were getting the stairway and doorway ready for the couple to leave when an arm appeared out of nowhere and seemed to “slap” Macron in the face.
Before the two of them went down the stairs onto the runway, his wife, wearing a red jacket, came out behind him a few seconds later.
As someone published the video on Twitter, someone commented, “Okay, but did you guys SEE @EmmanuelMacron’s wife literally push his face like she was swatting a fly?”
“Like she thought she was invisible or something and Macron just laughed it off, shaking hands like, ‘No big deal, just got publicly slapped by my wife, move along’.”
“A hand comes out of a red jacket and slaps the president,” another person claimed. It’s Macron and Brigitte’s official visit in Vietnam, therefore this isn’t a comedy sketch.
Before “smoothing it over with a wave,” Macron appeared “momentarily stunned,” according to a third.
Although the alleged altercation unavoidably caused the internet to go into overdrive, Macron has subsequently asserted that the exchange might not have been what it first appeared to be.
They had only been fooling about, he subsequently told reporters, saying, “We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife,” according to France24.
According to Macron, the incident has been greatly exaggerated, and “it becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe.”
In the past, his office had also provided an explanation, reiterating that the pair, who have been married since 2007, were merely having fun.
The president and his wife were “horsing around” to decompress one final time before the trip began, according to a statement.
It’s an instance of collusion. It was sufficient to provide the conspiracy theorists with fodder.
