Moment Macron tries to laugh off ‘disturbing' Brigitte slap in mocking wave as he steps off plane arm in arm with wife
THIS is the strange moment Emmanuel Macron appeared to laugh off the now viral incident when his wife "slapped" him on board a plane.
The French president's hand creeps round the corner of his jet's entrance for a brief, mocking wave as he prepares to be welcomed to Indonesia.
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After a brief moment, he walks out into full view at the top of the plane's stairs - the exact same spot as the "shoving" incident a few days earlier.
But this time, he locks arms with his wife Brigitte as they head out to greet officials.
Macron gives the cameras a thumbs up as the couple begin to descend the stairs.
It was all carefully staged to laugh off Monday's incident, officials have told The Telegraph.
The shocking moment saw Macron appearing to be shoved in the face by his wife as they prepared to disembark in Hanoi, Vietnam.
It came just as the plane door was being opened, with the president appearing to only notice a second later that the push was in plain view.
He then gives an awkward quick wave to the crowd before darting out of sight.
To start with the Elysée tried to suggest the footage was fake or AI generated.
Officials would later concede the clip was real, but said it was actually a sign of the couple's "closeness".
Macron later attacked "crackpot" conspiracy theorists who claimed it showed strain in his marriage to Brigitte.
Bizarre moment Emmanuel Macron is SLAPPED by his wife Brigitte while 'bickering' as they got off plane in Vietnam
He told reporters in Hanoi that they had been "joking around, as we do quite often".
An aide added: "It was a moment when the president and his wife were unwinding one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh - it was a moment of complicity."
This is why the couple's arrival in Indonesia is reported to have been intricately planned in a bid to dispel rumours around their relationship.
It all transpired while Macron was on a week-long tour of South East Asia in a drive to improve regional ties.
Macron's wife Brigitte, 72, is nearly 25 years the French president's senior.
They famously met when he was just 15 years old, as she had been one of his schoolteachers.
What does the body language say?
Our body language expert Judi James takes a look at the shocking moment Macron appears to be slapped by his wife.
Judi said: "I find it shocking that they've attempted to explain it by saying that it was just play, just a couple letting off steam.
"Her hand comes out and presses against his face, and if anybody wants to try this on themselves, you'll feel how vulnerable it makes you feel.
"Macron looks rather shocked. We can see later on, if we look at a close up of his hand, we can see that it's bored into a fist. The knuckles look white - so clearly a lot of pent up tension.
"These are veterans of being on the world stage.
"They know that when the plane lands, if they did want to have a little bit of fun and laughter, they would do it before they got to the plane door.
"When we see them emerging, there's this attempt to sort of do a glow up, to pretend that nothing happened.
"That's not normal body language behaviour in any relationship. I find it very worrying, as well as disturbing."
The couple would marry more than a decade later when he was 29 and she was 54 years.
Emmanuel Macron would be elected President of France 10 years later, becoming the youngest person ever to hold the office.
Reflecting on the "slap" moment, Macron also noted that other viral videos featuring him have featured outright disinformation.
This included reference to a fake claim that a video taken on the way to Kyiv showed he had a bag of cocaine with him.
He said people "have thought I shared a bag of cocaine, tussled with the Turkish president, now that I'm having a domestic dispute with my wife."
"None of this is true. Everyone needs to calm down," Macron added.
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