'Horsing around': France President Emmanuel Macron dismisses viral clip of wife 'shove'

Yahoo

27-05-2025

French President Emmanuel Macron is downplaying a viral video which appears to show his wife, and France's first lady Brigitte Macron shoving his face away before exiting a plane, according to a statement from Elysee Palace.
The clip was taken after the couple landed in Hanoi, Vietnam, as part of their Southeast Asia tour. Video shows President Macron standing in the aircraft's open doorway when an out of frame hand apparently shoves him away. The president quickly maintains his composure proceeding to smile and wave before exiting the frame and later exiting the aircraft alongside his wife.
President Macron dismissed speculation that the first lady shoved him telling reporters May 26 they were just being playful.
'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."
USA TODAY has reached out to Élysée Palace for comment.
Macron did not deny the legitimacy of the clip but criticized videographers for taking 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 his sentiment adding that the pair were simply "decompressing one last time" before their trip, ABC News reported.
"It's a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists," his office said, according to ABC News.
The couple have been married since 2007 after meeting at Le Providence Catholic high in northern France, where the president was a student and the first lady was a teacher.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: France's leader Emmanuel Macron addresses video of wife shoving him