Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron were just starting their five-day Asian tour in Vietnam when cameras on the ground in Hanoi caught Brigitte shoving her husband’s face on the plane. Brigitte and Pres. Macron quickly disembarked the plane, and Pres. Macron offered his wife his arm. She made a point of refusing to touch him. But further into the trip, their body language began to improve, and by the time they landed in Jakarta, they were holding hands and standing closer to one another. I’m including photos from Vietnam and Indonesia in this post – it seems like everyone wants to examine their body language now.
Hours after the footage of the face-shoving went viral, Pres. Macron issued a statement, confirming the authenticity of the video but saying that he and his wife were simply “bickering and rather, joking around [which] we often do. I’m surprised by it, it turns into some kind of global catastrophe where people are even coming up with theories to explain it. It’s nonsense.” What I missed was that the Élysée Palace initially dismissed the video as AI, but then Macron’s office issued a statement saying: “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.” We’re really being gaslighted about what we saw with our own eyes, but whatever. NPR points out that the video will be used (and is already being used) by Macron’s enemies and by enemies of the EU’s agenda and political power.
French Pres. Emmanuel Macron appeared to be pushed in the face by his wife Brigitte Macron as they arrived in Vietnam, the first stop of a Southeast Asia tour. https://t.co/nqzICGPpeY pic.twitter.com/VQnNSpMm1K
— ABC News (@ABC) May 26, 2025
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
