Paris
CNN
–
France’s Emmanuel Macron’s office moved swiftly on Monday to soften attention around a viral video showing his wife Bridget pushing his face away as she was exhausted in Vietnam for the first leg of her Southeast Asia tour.
A short clip shows the aircraft door open with the aircraft door appearing at the doorway. Seconds later, Bridget Macron’s hands reach from the sides and press against the president’s face, which appears to be a sudden thrust.
Macron appears to be briefly surprised, but soon waves his calm and waves into the press outside.
As the couple puts down the steps, Macron offers Bridget his arm.
Elise initially denied the airplane incident and later downplayed its importance.
According to Elise’s sources, it was a “moment of unity.”
“It was the last moment when the president and his wife rewind before the trip began and teased each other out of playfulness,” a source told CNN on Monday.
“We didn’t need any more to feed the conspiracy theorists’ factory,” the source added, saying the pro-Lucian troll would soon fall into controversy.
Macron is at the forefront of efforts to agree to Europe’s coordinated response to defending Ukraine following the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
The incident in Hanoi comes as Macron faces another swirl of online disinformation. Earlier this month, Elisse dismissed the virus claim that the French president was using cocaine on a train in Kiev, along with German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer.
Rumors that he had returned to his Russian parent’s accounts have falsely claimed that the crumpled organisation Macron picked up was a cocaine bag. “This is an organization. To blow the nose… when European solidarity becomes inconvenient, disinformation becomes more like a simple organization,” Elise said.
Maria Zakharova, a spokesman for the Kremlin’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, suggests that the scene is part of the wider European dysfunction. French officials have denounced the campaign as part of Moscow’s ongoing efforts to weaken Western unity in Ukraine and manipulate peace debates through false narratives and manipulation of social media.
