Macron's marital shove disappears from French airwaves
A quick shove. A split-second clip that would have dominated news for days aired in France for just 24 hours and then it was gone.
When a viral video appeared over the weekend showing French President Emmanuel Macron's wife, Brigitte, pushing his face just as he was about to deplane during a visit to Vietnam, not a single French newspaper front page featured it the next morning.
Was it because Prime Minister François Bayrou was speaking about the financial efforts the French would have to make under his soon-to-be-unveiled budget? Or that people were detained recently in a string of crypto kidnappings?
More likely, it highlighted a cultural divide between France and the Anglosphere – a long-standing French belief that politicians' private lives should be protected.
This secret-keeping tradition kept President François Mitterrand's illegitimate daughter hidden for years. It has also meant a delicate silence around other controversial personal lives, like Dominique Strauss-Kahn's notorious womanizing.
The former International Monetary Fund chief's arrest on sexual assault charges in New York in 2011 abruptly ended his political career just as he was emerging as a leading presidential contender.
The same unwritten rules surfaced in 2014, when Closer magazine published photos of former President François Hollande – disguised by a motorcycle helmet – arriving at the apartment of a friend, where he was reportedly meeting actress Julie Gayet.
At the time, Gayet was his girlfriend, even though he still had a live-in partner, Valérie Trierweiler.
The story caused a stir, but Hollande's office condemned the 'invasion of privacy,' and the media soon backed off.
At a press conference, Hollande faced only one question about his personal life and deflected it with the remark, 'private affairs are dealt with in private,' silencing the throng of French journalists and leaving foreign reporters stunned.
So when the video of the Macrons began circulating, the initial media response was swift but short-lived. French outlets played the clip on loop, dissected it briefly, and moved on.
But that core rule is now being tested.
'Over time, these kinds of personal stories have become far more difficult to contain than they were 30 or even 20 years ago,' said Thierry Arnaud, an international correspondent and veteran journalist at BFMTV.
'It's true we didn't make a big deal of it, but it's deeply embarrassing for Macron. You're intruding on a couple's intimate moment and it's uncomfortable, both for him and for those watching.'
Macron's relationship with Brigitte was always unconventional. They met when he was just 15, and she was his drama teacher at a private school in Amiens. She was 24 years older, married, and a mother of three.
What began as mentorship grew into something deeper, and by the time Macron graduated, he had vowed to one day marry her. 'Whatever you do, I will marry you,' he reportedly told her as a teenager.
Their story was used as campaign material in 2017, they made a point of making their relationship public, posing in glossy French magazines and describing their marriage as a celebration of an atypical but loving modern family. Any critics were labeled misogynists.
'It was completely a badge of honor at first, a special kind of glamour that added to his (Macron's) image of being daring both politically and personally. He fell in love with his teacher as a teenager and pursued it, come what may. Over time, that picture has eroded,' Arnaud said.
After the Vietnam shoving incident, the couple publicly displayed unity that very evening, walking hand in hand through the streets of Hanoi in a clear effort to quell any rumors of domestic discord.
But the line between public and private is blurring. Traditionally, the Élysée Palace has maintained a strict policy of never commenting on rumors or politicians' personal lives. However, with the rise of social media and disinformation campaigns they are being dragged into these personal controversies, challenging that long-held stance.
In March, conservative commentator Candace Owens revived an absurd conspiracy theory with a YouTube video titled 'Is France's First Lady a Man?'
Promoted widely on X, Owens called it 'likely the biggest scandal in political history.' Since then, Owens has produced numerous videos about Brigitte Macron for her 4 million YouTube subscribers, including a multi-part series called Becoming Brigitte.
Although the claims are completely baseless and Brigitte Macron has successfully sued two French women for spreading them it has elicited a response from the president.
At a Paris event in March 2024, Macron addressed the rumor head-on saying that the worst part of being a president is having to deal with 'the false information and fabricated stories.'
'People end up believing them, and it disrupts your life, even in your most private moments,' Macron said.
His words now feel prophetic, with the world speculating on a deeply intimate exchange we may never be let into.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
EU leaders concerned Trump will offer ‘too much in exchange for very little' in meeting with Putin
Watch U.S. Political Analyst Eric Ham on the concerns EU leaders and President Zelensky are feeling ahead of the meeting between Trump and Putin on Friday.
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
New draft of plastic pollution treaty would not limit plastic production
Plastic items are seen next to an artwork by Canadian artist and activist Benjamin Von Wong, titled 'The Thinker's Burden', a 6-meter-tall sculptural remix of Rodin's iconic Thinker, created especially for the Plastics Treaty negotiations, on Place des Nations in front of the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025 before the second segment of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC-5.2). (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
Vietnam wants to be the next Asian tiger and it's overhauling its economy to make it happen
HANOI, Vietnam — Beneath red banners and a gold bust of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi's central party school, Communist Party chief To Lam declared the arrival of 'a new era of development' late last year. The speech was more than symbolic— it signaled the launch of what could be Vietnam's most ambitious economic overhaul in decades. Vietnam aims to get rich by 2045 and become Asia's next 'tiger economy' — a term used to describe the earlier ascent of countries like South Korea and Taiwan. The challenge ahead is steep: Reconciling growth with overdue reforms, an aging population, climate risks and creaking institutions. There's added pressure from President Donald Trump over Vietnam's trade surplus with the U.S., a reflection of its astounding economic trajectory. In 1990, the average Vietnamese could afford about US$1,200 worth of goods and services a year, adjusted for local prices. Today, that figure has risen by more than 13 times to US$16,385. Vietnam's transformation into a global manufacturing hub with shiny new highways, high-rise skylines and a booming middle class has lifted millions of its people from poverty, similar to China. But its low-cost, export-led boom is slowing and it faces a growing obstacle to its proposed reforms — expanding private industries, strengthening social protections and investing in technology and green energy — from climate change. 'It's all hands on deck. . . . We can't waste time anymore,' said Mimi Vu of the consultancy Raise Partners. The export boom can't carry Vietnam forever Investment has soared, driven partly by U.S.-China trade tensions, and the U.S. is now Vietnam's biggest export market. Once-quiet suburbs have been replaced with industrial parks where trucks rumble through sprawling logistics hubs that serve global brands. Vietnam ran a US$123.5 billion trade surplus with the U.S. trade in 2024, angering Trump, who threatened a 46 per cent U.S. import tax on Vietnamese goods. The two sides appear to have settled on a 20 per cent levy, and twice that for goods suspected of being transshipped, or routed through Vietnam to avoid U.S. trade restrictions. During negotiations with the Trump administration, Vietnam's focus was on its tariffs compared to those of its neighbors and competitors, said Daniel Kritenbrink, a former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. 'As long as they're in the same zone, in the same ballpark, I think Vietnam can live with that outcome,' he said. But he added questions remain over how much Chinese content in those exports might be too much and how such goods will be taxed. Vietnam was preparing to shift its economic policies even before Trump's tariffs threatened its model of churning out low-cost exports for the world, aware of what economists call the 'middle-income trap,' when economies tend to plateau without major reforms. To move beyond that, South Korea bet on electronics, Taiwan on semiconductors, and Singapore on finance, said Richard McClellan, founder of the consultancy RMAC Advisory. But Vietnam's economy today is more diverse and complex than those countries were at the time and it can't rely on just one winning sector to drive long-term growth and stay competitive as wages rise and cheap labor is no longer its main advantage. It needs to make 'multiple big bets,' McClellan said. Vietnam's game plan Following China's lead, Vietnam is counting on high-tech sectors like computer chips, artificial intelligence and renewable energy, providing strategic tax breaks and research support in cities like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Danang. It's also investing heavily in infrastructure, including civilian nuclear plants and a US$67 billion North–South high-speed railway, that will cut travel time from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City to eight hours. Vietnam also aspires to become a global financial center. The government plans two special financial centers, in bustling Ho Chi Minh City and in the seaside resort city of Danang, with simplified rules to attract foreign investors, tax breaks, support for financial tech startups, and easier ways to settle business disputes. Underpinning all of this is institutional reform. Ministries are being merged, low-level bureaucracies have been eliminated and Vietnam's 63 provinces will be consolidated into 34 to build regional centers with deeper talent pools. Private business to take the lead Vietnam is counting on private businesses to lead its new economic push — a seismic shift from the past. In May, the Communist Party passed Resolution 68. It calls private businesses the 'most important force' in the economy, pledging to break away from domination by state-owned and foreign companies. So far, large multinationals have powered Vietnam's exports, using imported materials and parts and low cost local labor. Local companies are stuck at the low-end of supply chains, struggling to access loans and markets that favored the 700-odd state-owned giants, from colonial-era beer factories with arched windows to unfashionable state-run shops that few customers bother to enter. 'The private sector remains heavily constrained,' said Nguyen Khac Giang of Singapore's ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. Again emulating China, Vietnam wants 'national champions' to drive innovation and compete globally, not by picking winners, but by letting markets decide. The policy includes easier loans for companies investing in new technology, priority in government contracts for those meeting innovation goals, and help for firms looking to expand overseas. Even mega-projects like the North-South High-Speed Rail, once reserved for state-run giants, are now open to private bidding. By 2030, Vietnam hopes to elevate at least 20 private firms to a global scale. But Giang warned that there will be pushback from conservatives in the Communist Party and from those who benefit from state-owned firms. A Closing Window from climate change Even as political resistance threatens to stall reforms, climate threats require urgent action. After losing a major investor over flood risks, Bruno Jaspaert knew something had to change. His firm, DEEP C Industrial Zones, houses more than 150 factories across northern Vietnam. So it hired a consultancy to redesign flood resilience plans. Climate risk is becoming its own kind of market regulation, forcing businesses to plan better, build smarter, and adapt faster. 'If the whole world will decide it's a can go very fast,' said Jaspaert. When Typhoon Yagi hit last year, causing US$1.6 billion in damage, knocking 0.15 per cent off Vietnam's GDP and battering factories that produce nearly half the country's economic output, roads in DEEP C industrial parks stayed dry. Climate risks are no longer theoretical: If Vietnam doesn't take strong action to adapt to and reduce climate change, the country could lose 12–14.5 per cent of its GDP each year by 2050, and up to one million people could fall into extreme poverty by 2030, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, Vietnam is growing old before it gets rich. The country's 'golden population' window — when working-age people outnumber dependents — will close by 2039 and the labor force is projected to peak just three years later. That could shrink productivity and strain social services, especially since families — and women in particular — are the default caregivers, said Teerawichitchainan Bussarawan of the Centre for Family and Population Research at the National University of Singapore. Vietnam is racing to pre-empt the fallout by expanding access to preventive healthcare so older adults remain healthier and more independent. Gradually raising the retirement age and drawing more women into the formal workforce would help offset labor gaps and promote 'healthy aging,' Bussarawan said. ___ Aniruddha Ghosal, The Associated Press
