Shocking video shows French President Emmanuel Macron's wife appearing to push him in the face as the couple arrived in Vietnam at the start of a Southeast Asia tour.
In video taken by The Associated Press as the Macrons arrived in Hanoi, a uniformed man can be seen pulling open the plane door and revealing the president standing inside, dressed in a suit and talking to someone who wasn't visible.
Brigitte Macron’s arms can be seen reaching out and shoving her husband before he descended from the presidential plane late on Sunday.
The French leader recoils, turning his head away. Then, apparently realizing that he is on camera, he breaks into a smile and gives a little wave.
In subsequent images, Mr Macron and his wife, wearing a red jacket, appear at the top of the stairs. He offers an arm but she doesn’t take it. They then walk down the carpeted stairs side by side.
An Elysee official played down the moment, denying it showed an argument between the couple, who have been married since 2007: “It was a moment when the president and his wife were relaxing one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh.”
“It was a moment of closeness,” the official said.
Mr Macron later told reporters that the couple - married since 2007 after meeting at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher - were simply joking around.
“We are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife,” he said, adding that the incident was being overblown into “a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe”.
The moment quickly made headlines in France, with media trying to decipher the interaction that cameras spotted through the just-opened door of the plane.
The headline of a story on the website of the daily Le Parisien newspaper asked: “Slap or `squabble'? The images of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron disembarking in Vietnam trigger a lot of comment.”
Mr Macron's visit to Vietnam, the first by a French president in almost a decade, comes as he aims to boost France's influence in its former colony.
Vietnam, which has a heavily export-driven economy, has made concessions to the US in trade talks in a bid to avoid 46% tariffs.
But Brussels has concerns that Vietnam's efforts to buy more American goods could come at Europe's expense.
US President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to impose 50% tariffs on imports from the European Union, but softened his stance two days later, restoring a July 9 deadline for talks between Washington and Brussels.
Mr Macron’s visit saw France and Vietnam sign a deal on for 20 Airbus planes, as well as defence and space pacts.
Deals signed during Mr Macron's visit covered the plane purchase, cooperation on nuclear energy, defence, railways, Airbus earth-observation satellites and Sanofi vaccines, a list of documents seen by Reuters showed, confirming an earlier report.
In total 14 deals were signed, which would be short of the dozens that the French presidential palace had said were in preparation before the visit, but more agreements were expected to be announced on Tuesday, an official said.
In statements to the press with no questions allowed, Mr Macron reiterated France's support of freedom of navigation, an issue dear to Vietnam as it often clashes with Beijing over contested boundaries in the South China Sea.
