Emmanuel Macron has denied he and his wife, Brigitte, had an altercation after a viral video promoted by Russian state media and French far-right accounts appeared to show her pushing him in the face as they prepared to get off a plane in Vietnam.

The video, shot by an Associated Press camera operator, shows the French president appearing in the doorway of the plane at the start of a visit to Hanoi. His wife’s hand appears to shove him, causing him to step back before recovering and waving.

Brigitte Macron’s body is not visible and her husband told reporters afterwards the gesture was playful. But the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, seized on the footage, writing on Telegram that the president had received “a right hook”.

“Did the first lady decide to cheer up her husband with a gentle pat on the cheek and miscalculated her strength?” she asked in a mocking post. “Did she want to fix his collar but ended up reaching the beloved face?” Zakharova added, after the Russia Today TV channel and associated social media accounts had repeatedly aired the clip. “Here’s a hint: maybe it was the ‘hand of the Kremlin’.”

Macron told reporters in Hanoi he and his wife were “joking around, as we do quite often”. An Élysée Palace official told French media the scene showed “a moment of closeness. But that was enough to feed the conspiracy theorists.”

Another Elysée source said the couple were “decompressing one last time before the start of the visit, larking around”. Macron “loves playing jokes like on his wife before official occasions, and she always responds like this … It wasn’t even a slap.”

View image in fullscreen The Macrons take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi on Monday. Photograph: Jeanne Accorsini/SIPA/Shutterstock

Macron noted that other videos of him had been misinterpreted. 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,” he said.

Zakharova and the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones this month wrongly accused Macron, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, of using drugs on a train to Kyiv, claiming a crumpled tissue was a bag of cocaine.

Macron told reporters in Hanoi the internet accounts making the claims were “familiar”, allying Russians with French extremists, adding that commentators had “explained this morning that my diplomacy was that of a battered husband”.

France and Vietnam on Monday signed deals on Airbus planes, defence and other pacts worth €9bn (£7.55bn) as the Macrons embarked on the first formal visit by a French presidential couple to the country’s former colony in nearly a decade.

The deals with Vietnam come amid trade turmoil prompted by Donald Trump’s US tariffs and cover the purchase of 20 Airbus planes, cooperation on nuclear energy, defence, rail and maritime transport, satellites and vaccines.

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.

President criticizes weaponization of out of context clip

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.

Emmanuel Macron has broken his silence following a viral clip that appeared to show an altercation between him and his wife, Brigitte.

The video showed the pair before disembarking a plane after landing in Vietnam. In the video, Brigitte’s hand could be seen shoving his face, before the French president realises that the plane door has opened. The politician then smiles before disembarking with his wife following behind him.

Emmanuel has since spoken out about the clip, saying that the pair were “joking around, as we do quite often”. He drew attention to previous videos that had been misinterpreted, saying he had allegedly “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.”

© Alamy Stock Photo The couple are visiting Vietnam

The Guardian reports a source saying of the incident that the French president “loves playing jokes like on his wife before official occasions, and she always responds like this. It wasn’t even a slap.”

The pair were visiting the country following a major trade deal between the two nations on subjects including defence and Airbus planes.

Upcoming state visit

Emmanuel and Brigitte are due to visit the United Kingdom in July to carry out a state visit. During their stay, the couple will stay at Windsor Castle in Berkshire where they will attend a state banquet.

© Corbis via Getty Images The French President will undertake a state visit in July

In a statement confirming their visit, the Palace said: “The President of the French Republic, His Excellency Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by Mrs Brigitte Macron, has accepted an invitation from His Majesty The King to pay a State Visit to the United Kingdom from Tuesday 8th July to Thursday 10th July 2025. The President and Mrs Macron will stay at Windsor Castle.”

While Buckingham Palace is the default residence for state visits, it’s currently undergoing refurbishments. Macron and his wife will therefore be hosted at the monarch’s historic residence in Berkshire.

A video surfaced showing what appears to be French First Lady Brigitte Macron pushing her husband away as they disembarked from their plane on Sunday, May 25, in Hanoi. President Emmanuel Macron’s office initially denied the incident, but later confirmed that photos and videos of the incident were real.

Video of Emmanuel Macron’s arrival in Vietnam on Sunday (May 25) showed the French president being pushed sharply in the face seconds before he was due to step off the plane. Credit: Reuters

The president’s office later told reporters that the couple was joking around.

“It was a moment where the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by horsing around,” the president’s office later told reporters. “It’s a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists.”

Macron is in Vietnam as part of a week-long tour of Southeast Asia to promote France as an alternative to the U.S. and China during ongoing trade and tariff disputes.

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French President Emmanuel Macron dismissed a video of an apparent row with his wife Brigitte as the two of them just “joking around.”

The footage filmed Sunday appears to show Brigitte Macron lightly slapping or pushing her husband in the face shortly before they disembark from a flight in Hanoi, Vietnam. The French leader at first seems surprised then turns toward the welcome delegation and waves. Before heading down the ramp, he appears to offer his arm to his wife, which she did not take.

Asked about the now-viral incident on Monday, Macron told reporters that it has been blown out of proportion.

“So you see a video that shows me squabbling, and joking around with my wife, and I’m surprised about it. [It] becomes a sort of disaster of planetary proposition, with everyone having their own theory about it,” he told journalists on the sidelines of his visit.

“It’s all a bit rubbish,” he added.

Several French news outlets reported that Macron’s office initially dismissed the video, which was filmed by The Associated Press, as fake news before backtracking.

Social media accounts hostile to Macron seized on the footage, which likely prompted the Elysée’s reported initial denial.

One of Macron’s aides, granted anonymity to discuss the incident, said that the images were enough “to set off the conspiracy theorists.” A second adviser blamed pro-Russian media for amplifying the video.

In recent weeks, the Elysée Palace has adopted a much more proactive approach to tackling fake news and disinformation on the internet.

Macron said that while the footage was real, the response online had echoes of recent unfounded allegations leveled against the French president, including that he was doing cocaine with European leaders on a train to Kyiv or that he had a special handshake with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“People use videos to spread a lot of nonsense,” he added.

The Macrons are on a five-day trip to Asia which takes them to Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore.

France 24