'We were joking': Macron denies 'domestic dispute' with wife after plane video
France's President Emmanuel Macron attends a ceremony at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.
Image: Chalinee Thirasupa / AFP
French President Emmanuel Macron denied Monday any "domestic dispute" with his wife Brigitte after a video appeared to show her shoving his face away as they arrived in Vietnam for a diplomatic visit.
They were "joking as we often do", he told reporters in Hanoi, adding that other videos had been misinterpreted as showing him sharing a bag of cocaine or confronting the Turkish president. "None of these are true," he said, and "everyone needs to calm down".
Macron's office on also downplayed the incident.
Footage shot by the Associated Press news agency in Hanoi on Sunday evening shows Macron's plane door opening to reveal him.
His wife Brigitte's arms emerge from the left of the open doorway, she places both hands on her husband's face and gives it a shove.
The president appears startled but quickly recovers and turns to wave through the open door. She remains concealed by the aircraft body, making it impossible to see her facial expression or body language.
The couple proceed down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese officials, though Brigitte Macron does not take her husband's offered arm.
The video clip circulated rapidly online, promoted particularly by accounts that are habitually hostile to the French leader.
Macron's office initially denied the authenticity of the images, before they were confirmed as genuine.
A close associate of the president later described the incident as a couple's harmless "squabble".
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.
Agence France-Presse