French President Emmanuel Macron is downplaying a viral video that appears to show his wife, First Lady Brigitte Macron, shoving his face away before exiting a plane, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace.
The clip was recorded after the couple landed in Hanoi, Vietnam, during their Southeast Asia tour. The video shows President Macron standing in the aircraft’s open doorway when a hand, seemingly out of frame, pushes him away. Macron quickly regains his composure, smiles, waves, and exits the frame, later leaving the plane alongside his wife.
President Macron addressed speculation about the incident on May 26, telling reporters that the moment was simply playful teasing.
“There’s a video showing me joking and teasing my wife and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe, with people even coming up with theories to explain it,” Macron said. “We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife.”
Macron Criticizes Overblown Reaction to Out-of-Context Clip
Macron did not dispute the authenticity of the video but criticized those who have taken it out of proportion.
“The videos are all real, and yes, sometimes people tamper with them, but people are attributing all kinds of nonsense to them,” he said.
His office later echoed these sentiments, stating the couple was simply “decompressing one last time” before their trip, according to ABC News.
“It’s a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists,” his office added.
The couple has been married since 2007 after meeting at Le Providence Catholic high school in northern France, where Emmanuel Macron was a student and Brigitte Macron was a teacher.
What The Author Thinks
In the age of social media, even the most benign moments between public figures are often twisted into controversies. Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron’s playful interaction is a clear example of how quickly harmless gestures can be weaponized and blown out of proportion. Public figures and their teams must be prepared for such scrutiny, but the public should also recognize that not every viral clip is a scandal. Sometimes, people are just being human.
Featured image credit: World Economic Forum via Flickr
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