People online have only just realized how French president Macron met his wife after a video of the pair went viral due to Brigitte ‘slapping’ him.
The video shows the 47-year-old standing at an aircraft door at Hanoi Airport. The door then opens and his wife, Brigitte, can be seen reaching her hands towards his face in a brief shoving motion.
He seems surprised by this move but turns around and waves to the media before the couple walk down the stairs. His wife then refuses to take his offered arm.
Watch the incident below:
The video has circulated online causing many to speculate about what happened, including Russian state media and French far-right media.
At first, the Élysée Palace dismissed the video as “fake news”, but now Macron has insisted the video is real and that it has been taken out of context.
He said: “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,”.
“We are horsing around, having a joke, and I was surprised by that, and that becomes a sort of geopolitical disaster,” he continued. “It’s nonsense. People read all kinds of stupidity into things.”
A spokesperson from the Élysée Palace agreed with these statements, claiming the interaction was “a moment of complicity” and that the couple were “decompressing one last time” before turning to their official business.
One source from the palace said “It wasn’t even a slap,”.
A lip reader has revealed to The Express what was said.
“As the aircraft door opens, President Macron is seen turning toward Brigitte. In an unexpected moment, she pushes him in the face,” they said.
“Emmanuel then steps closer to Brigitte before composing himself and crossing to the other side. Moments later, he signals for her to follow him with, ‘Let’s go,’” the lip reader said.
“He thanks the pilot and waves at the cameras, trying to recover the public-facing image.”
“But at the top of the stairs, things turn icy again. He offers his arm; she ignores it, clinging to the railing instead. As she passes, she appears to mutter, ‘Dégage, espèce de loser,’ translated in English, ‘Stay away, you loser.’”
They then claimed Macron said: “Essayons, s’il te plaît” — which translated to, “Let’s try, please?”
She then replies, “Non.”
“His closing expression, and the phrase lipread as ‘Je vois,’ translated in english “I see” says it all,” they added.
“Hot Take: A rare unguarded exchange that hints at deeper tensions between the couple. One to watch, especially with a packed diplomatic schedule ahead.” they added.
A biography about the French president has looked deeper into his relationship with Brigitte. Macron, 47 and his wife,72, met in 1993 when Macron was just 15 and his soon to be wife was 39.
The president was a student at a private school called La Providence where Brigitte was a teacher where she taught French and drama.
At that point, she was married to her ex-husband, banker Andre Auziere, whom she has three children with, Sebastien, Laurence and Tiphaine.
According to the biography written by Anna Fulda, called Emmanuel Macron: A Perfect Young Man, his parents thought he was dating one of Brigitte’s children.
His parents told Fulda that they later discovered through a family friend that he was actually having an affair with the married woman.
His mother, Francoise Nogues-Macron, was quoted by The Independent saying: “We just couldn’t believe it. What is clear is that when Emmanuel met Brigitte, we couldn’t just say, ‘That’s great’.”
Jean-Michel Macron, his father, added: “When Emmanuel met Brigitte, we certainly did not say, ‘How wonderful!’”
Nogues-Macron added that ‘what mattered’ was that her son was ‘alive’ and ‘there weren’t any problems’. They decided to pull him out of school.
She told Brigitte that Macron would ‘not have children’ and that she ‘had [her] life’ already.
His parents warned her to stay away from their son until he was 18, to which she replied “I cannot promise you anything.”
Speaking to Elle France in 2017, Brigitte shared: “The great distances that separated us physically until 2007. But we wrote to each other all the time during that period.
“It all unfolded very slowly. I gradually brought my family to realise that. Emmanuel gradually brought his family to realise that.”
They were married in 2007 aged 29 and 54.