French President Emmanuel Macron is beginning a tour of Asia, and arrived first in Vietnam. As he was about to start down the stairs of his airplane, his wife Brigitte delivered a two-handed shove to Macron’s face. Macron first looked shocked, then, realizing that the door to the aircraft was open, put on a smile:
It is a pretty shocking sight, and one can’t help wondering what else goes on behind closed doors. Macron’s office initially claimed that the video was a fake, before admitting it is genuine. An aide described the shove as the result of a “squabble,” and Macron himself played it down:
“We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife,” he said, calling reports on the incident overblown: “It becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe.”
I don’t know. It didn’t look like a joke to me. What does it mean? Probably nothing. But world leaders’ public images are so carefully curated that people are interested when they get a look behind the scenes, particularly a rather shocking one. And any furor involving Macron’s marriage will be heightened by the strangeness of his relationship with Brigitte, which began when Macron was a 15-year-old schoolboy and Brigitte was a 39-year-old teacher. Fairly or not, many have wondered about their relationship, and Brigitte’s two-handed shove will be grist for the mill.
That said, it probably doesn’t mean anything. On the other hand, imagine what the press reaction would be if cameras caught Melania Trump delivering a two-handed shove to Donald when she didn’t realize they were on camera. It would be enough to drive World War III off the front page.
