With a wave of his hand, Macron sends up ‘le slap’ | EUROtoday

With a wave of his hand French president Emmanuel Macron has taken a special tack to diffuse the controversy over his spouse showing to hit him, this time by making gentle of it.

On Monday, cameras caught the second Brigitte Macron pushed husband within the face as their aircraft arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, for the beginning of their South-East Asian tour. The French chief, who was standing within the doorway of the aircraft, seemed momentarily shocked after the then-unidentified hand hit him within the face.

But after taking part in down headlines of the pair showing to have been caught in the course of a heated argument, the French president on Tuesday as an alternative made enjoyable of it.

After touching down in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, for the second leg of their tour, an unidentified hand was seen waving to the cameras from the identical aspect of the doorway of the presidential aircraft from which Brigitte had seemingly hit Macron in Hanoi. Mr Macron then appeared within the doorway and walked down the steps arm-in-arm together with his spouse.

An in depth good friend of the couple advised Radio Francethat they’d staged the video to mock the fallout from the earlier video, nicknamed “le slap” within the media.

“They wanted to respond with self-mockery,” the supply mentioned.

Macron initially dismissed the incident from Hanoi as a joke between the couple, however he later expressed frustration that the video had “become some kind of planetary catastrophe”.

At the time, he cautioned that this was not the primary time in current weeks that the content material of movies of him had been twisted by individuals he described as “crackpots”.

Earlier this month, Russian social media channels seized on a video of Macron hiding a tissue, suggesting the French chief was trying to hide a bag of cocaine.

Macron was sitting in a prepare carriage on the way in which into Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, alongside Keir Starmer and German chancellor Friedrich Merz, when the footage was taken.

The Russian channels additionally claimed {that a} espresso stirrer clutched by Merz was a cocaine spoon.

Those ridiculous claims have been endorsed by high-level Russian officers, together with the Kremlin’s international ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

Paris overtly mocked the claims in a social media put up. It carried two images depicting the tissue in query and a photograph of Mr Macron shaking fingers with Sir Keir. “This is a tissue for blowing your nose,” the caption for the primary photograph learn. “This is European unity to build peace,” learn the second.