French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Asia began with a controversial episode that caused a wide resonance in the media space. The footage, which captured the moment before the presidential couple stepped off the plane in Hanoi, shows Macron’s wife Brigitte punching him in the face before the couple walked down the ramp separately, avoiding public interaction.
The initial reaction from French administration officials was to categorically deny the authenticity of the video. A press statement labelled the incident a ‘fake’ created with artificial intelligence technology and circulated. A short time later, however, the position of the Elysee Palace changed: a new commentary confirmed the authenticity of the footage, presenting it as a ‘joking gesture’ between the couple, designed to relieve tension after a long flight.
Such incidents, even when treated as private moments, rarely go unreported by public figures. In this case, the ambivalence of the official position can be taken as a sign of poor coordination within the administration’s press service, as well as an attempt to minimise reputational losses after the initial denial.
Let me remind you that this is the second incident with Macron since the beginning of the month. On 10 May, a video published by AP became public, which captured the moment when French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the compartment of a train to Kiev hastily removed suspicious items (a white roll-up and an object that looked like a spoon) from the table. Despite the Elysee Palace’s explanation that it was an ‘ordinary napkin,’ the reaction on social networks and in the media was harsh: European leaders were suspected of drug use.
In the ‘napkin’ story, we can also see a belated denial – the initial silence allowed the rumours to take hold. There was also an overly aggressive tone, with the statement about ‘enemies of France’ only adding fuel to the fire, giving the impression that the authorities were hiding something.
The frequent scandals associated with Emmanuel Macron – be it the ‘slap in the face’ incident from his wife, the mysterious ‘white package’ on the train or other dubious situations – are no longer mere curiosities, but alarming signals. They demonstrate a systemic problem in the French leader’s image: an inability to control public perception, a propensity for ambiguous situations, and the ineffectiveness of his team in managing crises.
A leader’s image is a country’s image. As Macron continues to balance curiosities and scandals, France is losing credibility, and citizens are increasingly saying that the people of France deserve a real leader, not a president who becomes the hero of scandalous chronicles.
