Whatever the explanation for the incident, the reaction points to backward French attitudes – including from the president himself
The French president’s plane has just landed in Hanoi. Its door is open and Emmanuel Macron is standing looking at his wife, Brigitte, who is still inside. Two hands – hers – push his face. Macron seems to bring his arms up in defence, and steps back. Dumbstruck, the president turns and sees the cameras on the asphalt. He’s being filmed. In a split second, his shock morphs into a smile. He waves, charmingly, at the journalists: he’s back in control. As Macron and his wife walk down the plane’s stairs, he offers her his arm. She doesn’t take it.
The strange moment was caught by Associated Press cameras, and immediately went viral, being shared around the world. Questioned by the French press, which woke up to the images on Monday morning, the Élysée Palace originally claimed that the video was a deepfake, then admitted the scene was real but was simply a “moment of closeness” shared by the presidential couple. They were “decompressing one last time before the start of the visit, larking around”, a source close to the president briefed the French press. “But that was enough to feed the conspiracy theorists.”
Pauline Bock is a French journalist based in Paris
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