Emmanuel Macron

Macron on strange push: “Calm down”

Jonathan Norberg

Updated 01.02 | Published 2025-05-26 22.48

Emmanuel Macron got a hard push in the face from his wife.

Now the French president is raging against the “crazy” in the press.

– I was just joking with my wife, as we often do, he says.

        

         Here the French president gets a push in the face – from his own wife

         0:26

The strange scene took place when the French presidential couple had landed in Vietnam.

A film shows how the first lady Birgitte Macron, 72, grabs her husband’s face and pushes him backwards. Emmanuel Macron, 47, looks surprised, but quickly recovers and then waves to the camera.

Shortly afterwards, the president's staff tried to play down the situation to Le Figaro:

"It was a moment when the president and his wife took the opportunity to relax one last time before the trip began - by laughing together," they said in a statement.

President Macron gets a shove in the face by his wife Birgitte. Photo: Hau Dinh /AP

Called the press

Despite this, the clip continued to spread and be discussed. So much so that a visibly irritated Macron called the assembled press corps in Hanoi on Monday.

There, according to the newspaper Le Monde, he wanted to give a speech to the "crazy people" and "maniacs" who have speculated about the meaning of the shove.

- Everyone needs to calm down and focus on real news, he says.

The French president said that the only thing the video shows is him and his wife joking with each other.

Macron on site in Hanoi. Photo: Chalinee Thirasupa/AP

Accused of cocaine use

Emmanuel Macron then connects the reactions to the video with conspiracy theories that have flourished around him lately.

– In three weeks, I have been accused of sharing cocaine on a train, wrestling with the president of Turkey and now having a marital argument on the steps of an airplane. None of it is true, he tells Le Figaro.

As recently as two weeks ago, the president's staff chose to officially deny that the president had used cocaine with Britain's Keir Starmer and Germany's Olaf Scholz on a train to Ukraine.

The theory arose after a picture of the three leaders where something white is visible on the table – something that turned out to be a handkerchief.

“When European unity becomes uncomfortable, disinformation goes so far that a simple handkerchief is made to look like drugs. This fake news is spread by France’s enemies, both abroad and at home. We must remain vigilant against manipulation,” the Elysée Palace wrote in a post on X.

Birgitte Macron. Photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT