French President Macron denies ‘domestic dispute’ with wife after viral plane video

Following a video that seemed to show his wife, Brigitte, pushing his face away as they landed in Vietnam for a diplomatic visit, French President Emmanuel Macron denied on Monday that he and his wife had a "domestic dispute."

He told reporters in Hanoi that they were "joking as we often do," adding that other recordings had been misconstrued as depicting him threatening the Turkish president or sharing a bag of cocaine.

“None of these are true,” he stated, and “everyone needs to calm down”.

The event in which his wife seemed to push his face away was also minimized by his staff on Monday.

Footage shot by the Associated Press news agency in Hanoi on Sunday evening shows Macron’s jet door opening to reveal him.

From the left of the open doorway, his wife Brigitte's arms appear. She shoves her husband's face with both hands.

After a moment of shock, the president quickly gathers himself and turns to wave through the open door.

She stays concealed by the airplane body, making it hard to view her face expression or body language.

The couple go down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese authorities, while Brigitte Macron does not take her husband’s offered arm.

Before the photos were verified as authentic, Macron's team first rejected their veracity.

The incident was later characterized as a harmless "squabble" between a couple by a close colleague of the president.

Another member of his entourage played down the significance of the incident.

“It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around,” the second source told reporters.

“It’s a moment of togetherness. No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,” the source added, blaming pro-Russian accounts for negative comments about the incident.

Vietnam is the first stop on an almost week-long tour of Southeast Asia for Macron where he will pitch France as a reliable alternative to the United States and China.

He will also visit Indonesia and Singapore.

AFP