A video of the French president’s wife shoving him went viral. Here’s why it matters

French President Emmanuel Macron is downplaying a viral video that appears to show his wife shoving him in the face, describing it as part of a recent disinformation campaign against him.

The footage, filmed by the Associated Press on Sunday, shows Macron standing in the open doorway of his plane after touching down in Hanoi, Vietnam. He seems to be talking to someone when a pair of red-sleeved arms reaches out and pushes him in the face.

Macron briefly looks startled, takes a step back, and quickly turns to wave at the cameras. French first lady Brigitte Macron, wearing a red jacket, emerges behind him and they walk down the steps side by side. Macron appears to offer her his arm, which she does not accept.

As the footage circulated, French media reported that the Élysée Palace, Macron’s office, initially dismissed it as the product of artificial intelligence. But on Monday, they confirmed the authenticity of the video.

“It was a moment when the president and his wife were relaxing one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh,” the Élysée said, according to Reuters. “It was a moment of closeness.”

The Macrons’ marriage has long been a subject of controversy.

Macron fell in love with his high school drama teacher, Brigitte Auzière, when he was just 15 years old. She was 24 years older and married with three children. Despite Macron’s parents sending him away to Paris to finish school, he kept in close contact with Auzière and vowed to marry her one day — which he did in 2007.

Macron, whose visit to Vietnam kicks off a week-long tour of Southeast Asia, told reporters on Monday that the video had simply captured him “squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife.”

“I’m surprised by it, it turns into some kind of global catastrophe where people are even coming up with theories to explain it,” he said, according to a translation from the New York Times. “It’s nonsense.”

Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, told NPR that it’s not surprising that a video showing a world leader in such a position would go viral — or that it would be used to promote a certain agenda.

“In today’s digital environment, I think it is not a question of whether it goes viral, it’s to what ends people want to use that video for,” he said. In this case, Macron — and other disinformation experts — say Russia is seizing the moment to try to make him look weak.

It’s not the first Macron video to go viral recently 

This is not the first time a video of Macron has gone viral. He noted that although the plane video is real, the public interpretation of it is incorrect — and called it another example of online disinformation aimed at undermining him in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, a video of Macron meeting with the German and British leaders on a train to Kyiv made headlines when some social media users speculated that a tissue lying on the table was actually a bag of cocaine.

The Élysée debunked those rumors in a post on social media, saying they had been spread by France’s enemies at home and abroad.

“When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs,” it wrote.

Days later, another moment drew attention when a lingering handshake between Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a summit in Albania wet viral.

Video footage showed Erdogan holding on to Macron’s middle finger for over 10 seconds before eventually letting go as they both laughed.

Viewers speculated whether this was a blunder, power play or something else. Macron reassured reporters on Monday that, like the other recent incidents, it was harmless.

“It’s been three weeks — if you look at the international agenda of the president of the French Republic, from Kyiv to Tirana to Hanoi, there are people who have watched the videos and believe that I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a ‘mano a mano’ with a Turkish president and that right now I’m having a fight with my wife,” he said. “None of this is true.”

Macron — and experts — blame Russia 

Macron specifically denounced “networks that are quite well-traceable,” as the AFP translates, including French extremists and “the Russians.”

The plane video seems to have been amplified online by Russian social media accounts, including at least one Kremlin official.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram that Macron had received a “right hook from his wife,” according to AFP, and speculated that his office might blame Russia by way of explanation.

“Maybe it was the ‘hand of the Kremlin’?” she wrote.

Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at The New School, tells NPR that the video went viral in Russia significantly because it contradicts Macron’s public image of toughness — in general (remember those 2024 boxing photos?) and towards Russia specifically (who has spoken in recent months about European countries sending troops to Ukraine).

Macron positions himself as “a giant confrontation” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Khrushcheva explains, especially since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Macron acts as if he’s very macho, but look at him, it’s all a performance … because he’s been beaten by the wife,” she says, explaining the Russian perspective. “So in this sense, of course it got viral and became sort of a joke for the Russians … like ‘He’s tough on Russia? Look at this, he’s not even tough on his wife.'”

Linvill, of Clemson, says that while pro-Russian voices may frame the video as a joke, they are actually sending a “very serious message.” He says they will use this video — and similar content — to try to portray Macron as foolish or powerless.

“Anything they can do to chip away at the common perception of him as this strong leader, they’re going to take advantage of that,” he says, adding that such characterizations also bolster Putin’s domestic image by making him look more competent when compared to Macron.

Linvill says it’s not unusual for Russia to target Western leaders in this way, but Macron’s prominence and his advocacy role in NATO make him “target number one.” Every moment Macron and his team have to spend defending against these kinds of attacks, Linvill says, is a moment that is “keeping them away from keeping the West together.”

“I think we’re seeing a change in what has been decades of a status quo that favored the West, and Russia and China and other countries that stand in opposition to the West and to NATO are looking to chip away at what remains of those traditions and those standards,” he says.

“And these incremental attacks on leaders like Macron — who are trying to put their finger in the dam, as it were, and hold the West together — these attacks are going to continue and they’re going to continue to work to undermine his legitimacy.”

NPR’s Jaclyn Diaz contributed reporting.