French president Emmanuel Macron appeared to be stunned after his wife Brigitte Macron shoved him in the face in front of the international press.
The Macrons arrived in Vietnam on Monday on a six-day tour of Southeast Asia and were disembarking the plane when the apparent physical altercation took place.
The president, 47, later shrugged it off and claimed the couple had just been “squabbling.”
“We are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife,” Macron told reporters. “I’m surprised by it, it turns into some kind of global catastrophe where people are even coming up with theories to explain it,” he said. “It’s nonsense.”
The Elysee Palace, the official residence of the French president, also attempted to play down the incident.
“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,” an official said. “It was a moment of closeness.”
Macron was standing at the top of the aircraft stairs when his wife appeared to smack him on the mouth and push him towards the media and hosts waiting to greet the couple.
France’s first lady, 72, dressed in a red suit, appeared to shove her husband’s face with both hands as soon as the cockpit door opened.
The French president appeared flustered before he composed himself, smiled and waved awkwardly as the two disembarked.
Brigitte Macron, who was Macron’s high school teacher, remained momentarily hidden behind the plane’s fuselage, which blocked the view of her expression or body language. She refused to take his arm down the stairs.
Macron arrived in Hanoi late on Monday – a first visit by a French president in nearly a decade – in an effort to boost France's influence in a former colony.
The video quickly went viral on social media.
Many observers found it hard to believe that it was playful banter and said it was an “embarrassing” moment that Mr Macron would be compelled to navigate during and after the tour.
Gilbert Collard, a former EU lawmaker from France, said “everyone is laughing” at the couple and asked if the former teacher slapping her student was true.
“Looks like even world leaders have to navigate a little domestic turbulence! Just goes to show, no matter how high you fly, there’s always someone to keep you grounded,” X user Rob Frasca said. “What a moment!”
Now that’s an expression !!! pic.twitter.com/Vx7edls5h0
— Snackbytes (@SnackByteso1) May 26, 2025
Macron está com ódio depois do tapão que recebeu do seu esposo Brigitte. Isso pode ser observado na postura corporal. pic.twitter.com/arLj5g9rhy
— Paladin 🎖 (@PaladinRood) May 26, 2025
“French President Emmanuel Macron & wife Brigitte caught in a heated moment the second they touched down in Vietnam. Scuffle caught on camera showed Brigitte taking a swing mid argument. The plane may have landed smoothly… her slap dint quit,” another user, Nabeela Jamal, said.
Many others shared close-up images of Macron’s clenched jaw and a hard fist as he faced the camera with his wife by his side.
The couple met at Lycée La Providence, a Jesuit high school in Amiens, where Brigitte Macron was the future president’s drama teacher. He was 15 years old at the time.
Macron is 24 years younger than his wife and they married in 2007.
The incident came just as Macron was coming out of the “cocaine controversy”. France furiously denied a fake claim that a viral video showed Macron removing a small white object from a table which some social media users, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova falsely claimed was a bag of cocaine.
Macron, British prime minister Keir Starmer and German chancellor Friedrich Merz were travelling on a train from Poland to Ukraine to visit President Volodymyr Zelensky when the incident occurred.
Zakharova suggested the leaders were using drugs on the train when reporters entered their cabin, calling it a “cocaine party”.
The Elysee Palace refuted the claims saying the object was a crumpled tissue. “This is a tissue. For blowing your nose. When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs,” it said on X.
From Vietnam, Macron is scheduled to visit Indonesia and Singapore.
The visit comes soon after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on European Union goods from June 1, fuelling tensions with the 27-country bloc, though he later delayed that deadline to July 9.
Trump last month imposed tariffs on Vietnam, an export-dependent country facing pressure from Washington, D.C. to buy more American goods or faces a 46 percent tariff.
The visit saw France sign 14 deals with Vietnam and covered airplane purchase, cooperation on nuclear energy, defence, railways, Airbus earth-observation satellites and Sanofi vaccines.
Vietnam's president Luong Cuong said the defence partnership involved "sharing of information on strategic matters" and stronger cooperation in the defence industry, cybersecurity and anti-terrorism.
