French President Emmanuel Macron has landed in more than a few compromising situations, but there’s always the go-to strategy of blaming Russia.
In the wake of a viral video that appeared to show someone, presumably his wife, shoving his face while aboard a jet, Macron attempted to brush off the controversy with another claim of Russian intervention.
According to Fox News:
His office has continued to downplay the incident following the initial attempt to suggest a pro-Russia disinformation campaign.
ADVERTISEMENT“It was a moment where the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by horsing around. It’s a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists,” his office said.
Macron has also told reporters that the couple were just joking around.
“We are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife,” he said, adding that the incident was being overblown into “a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe.”
It’s not the first time Macron has tried to pass the buck all the way to Moscow, as the Daily Wire reported:
The incident comes after Macron shot down a rumor pushed by a Russian official that he was doing cocaine on a trip to Kyiv with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs,” the Elysee stated. “This fake news is being spread by France’s enemies, both abroad and at home. We must remain vigilant against manipulation.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who pushed the cocaine allegations, said that Macron’s advisors would attempt to claim that Russia was behind the “right hook from his wife.”
“Maybe it was the ‘hand of the Kremlin?’” Zakharova said sarcastically, French 24 reported.
Russia might be engaged in all sorts of shady business, but it’s clear from the reaction of social media users that Macron isn’t doing himself any favors by trying to downplay the underlying issue:
Amerix: Don't marry a woman older than you. It might look exciting at first but in the long run she will harm you.
Soy-men and simps: Tell that to Macron, he will laugh at you.
Macron: pic.twitter.com/k4pPZ20gkm
— Eric (@amerix) May 26, 2025
Macron and his “wife” today.
pic.twitter.com/x2APQH3Q1m— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) May 27, 2025
Macron is a constant humiliation for France.
He just got slapped by his husband, the teacher that abused him when he was a minor.
This same clown wants to go to war against Russia…. pic.twitter.com/U7GomrqtuB— Angelo Giuliano 🇨🇭🇮🇹🔻🔻🔻 (@angeloinchina) May 26, 2025
The New York Post also covered the aftermath of the slap seen ’round the world:
Blaming the Kremlin for most things that go wrong in France has become a national pastime, according to one observer. Jean-Noel Barrot, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France, blamed Russia for an outbreak of bedbugs in the months before Paris was set to host the Olympic Games last year.
But French observers told The Post that Brigitte’s slap had nothing to do with Russia and everything to do with keeping her much younger husband in line.
Brigitte, 72, is 25 years older than her husband, whom she met when she was his drama and literature teacher in high school in the city of Amiens in northern France. Brigitte Auziere, as she was known at the time, was a married mother of three when she fell in love with her 15-year-old student. Macron is now 47.
“Honestly, I don’t think they have a bad relationship,” said one Parisian source. “It’s just Mum with her boy, if you see what I mean.”
For Carole Raphaelle Davis, an actor and writer, who spends time between Los Angeles and Nice, the slap incident — known in France as “la gifle” — was a very public glimpse into a private moment in the first couple’s marriage. They have been married since 2007.
ADVERTISEMENT“Brigitte Macron was full-on James Cagney in ‘Public Enemy,’” said Davis. “This is a powerful woman slapping — no, b–ch-smacking — a man who sometimes behaves like a little king. It’s wrong but it’s riveting … For French women, left, right and center, she smacked all men who push our limits.”
Here’s some additional coverage of the viral moment:
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