A body language expert has revealed that Emmanuel Macron betrayed his true feelings after being shoved in the face by wife Brigitte in front of the world’s media, describing the incident as ‘shocking’.
Noticing Macron’s reaction after the incident, the expert pointed out that the French President seemed to ball one of his hands into a fist moments after stepping onto the tarmac in Vietnam upon his arrival on Sunday night.
In response to the media attention surrounding the incident, Macron addressed reporters in Hanoi the following day, downplaying the situation by stating: ‘I was bickering, or rather joking, with my wife. It’s nothing.’
But James told MailOnline that the interaction was far from a ‘playful’ moment of teasing between a husband and wife as Macron and his inner circle had attempted to portray it.
‘I would not describe the gesture we saw from inside the plane as one of ‘play’ as has been claimed,’ she said.
‘Pushing your partner in the face with your hand so hard their head reels to the side and they need to put a hand out to keep balance, especially with what looks like an extra “shove” at the end of the contact, should not be normalized by calling it “fun” just to save political face.’
Earlier on Monday, an Elysee official said of the latest 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… It was a moment of closeness.’
Brigitte Macron was a 39-year-old married mother-of-three when she met a 15-year-old Macron in 1993 while working as one of his high school teachers, supervising his drama club.
He moved to Paris for his last year of high school, but promised to marry her. She later moved to the French capital to join him and divorced before they finally wed years later in 2007.
The clip of the couple rowing on the jet was at first described as inauthentic by Macron’s office, before it was quickly confirmed to be genuine.
A close associate of the president later played down the incident as a couple’s harmless ‘squabble’.Â
In video recorded by the Associated Press news agency, Brigitte’s arms are seen emerging from the left of the open doorway as 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.Â
She remains concealed by the aircraft body, making it impossible to see her facial expression or body language.
The couple then proceed down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese officials, though Brigitte Macron does not take her husband’s offered arm.
Macron was then seen with a tightly closed fist as the couple moved to leave the runway area.
Reviewing the footage, James said: ‘This will inevitably be turned into a “joke” by some people but I would call it genuinely shocking and I would say the same if it was any other couple walking down any street, no matter who did it to who.’
She highlighted how claims that the couple were ‘horsing around’ are not reflected in the body language.
‘There is no follow-up shared laughter, grins or teasing rituals, Macron performs a “think-on-your-feet” wave before stepping back in towards his wife, but he seems to touch his face too, in a checking gesture,’ she said.
‘If this had been his hand and her face would it have been called “playful”? So it should not from her to him.’
She added that while the footage is not totally clear, it appears as though Brigitte used both hands to push her husband’s face, which ‘could have easily led to him going off-balance and stumbling over.’
When the couple then head down the plane step together, she said, ‘he seems to hold his hand out towards her… but they walk with no further touch.’
Describing how the pair were interacting today on the first day of their south east Asia tour, she said: ‘There has clearly been a re-boot for the actual visit.
‘We can see the couple appearing to be back to their more pleasant touch rituals again, with Macron’s hand held out to help Brigitte down some stairs as they walk with their hosts in front of the world’s official view.’
James added that with an upcoming visit to the UK in the diary, the Macrons will need to be conscious of the ‘body language scrutiny that visit will now prompt.’
The incident prompted panicked members of Macron’s inner circle to issue explanations, with one source saying: ‘It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around.
‘It’s a moment of togetherness. No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,’ they added, blaming pro-Russian accounts for negative comments about the incident.
The video clip circulated rapidly online, promoted particularly by accounts that are habitually hostile to the French leader.Â
Macron cautioned that this was not the first time in recent weeks that the content of videos of him had been twisted by people he described as ‘crackpots’.Â
Earlier this month, France furiously denied a fake claim that President Macron hid a bag of cocaine while posing for a photograph with Keir Starmer and Germany‘s Friedrich Merz.Â
The trio met on Friday aboard a train travelling from Poland to Ukraine to visit President Volodymyr Zelensky and to pressure Russia into agreeing to a ceasefire.Â
Pro-Russian keyboard warriors were quick to fuel wild conspiracy theories that a white object on the table was drugs, but the French government quickly clarified that the item in question was in fact a tissue.Â
Macron’s visit to Vietnam, the first by a French president in almost a decade, comes as he aims to boost France’s influence in its former colony.
Vietnam, which has a heavily export-driven economy, has made concessions to the US in trade talks in a bid to avoid 46% tariffs.Â
But Brussels has concerns that Vietnam’s efforts to buy more American goods could come at Europe’s expense.
US President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to impose 50% tariffs on imports from the European Union, but softened his stance two days later, restoring a July 9 deadline for talks between Washington and Brussels.
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.
Speaking on the first day of the tour today, Macron called for the preservation of a world order ‘based on law’.
During a press statement alongside his Vietnamese counterpart Luong Cuong in Hanoi, Macron said a rules-based order was necessary at ‘a time of both great imbalance and a return to power-driven rhetoric’.
Macron signed more than a dozen agreements on defense, nuclear power and trade, including one with the Vietnamese budget airline company VietJet and Airbus to buy 20 A330-900 planes.
He paid tribute at a Hanoi war memorial to those who fought the French colonial rulers and met with his counterpart Luong Cuong, as well as Communist Party general secretary To Lam.
Macron also visited the 11th century Temple of Literature in the heart of the Vietnamese capital.
France and Vietnam’s ‘sovereignty partnership’ could be the central axis of France’s approach in the Indo-Pacific, Macron said.
France has demonstrated its ‘desire to defend international maritime law’ when it deployed the French carrier strike group in the South China Sea in early 2025, Macron said.
China and Vietnam have long had a maritime agreement governing the Gulf of Tonkin, but have been locked in competing claims in the South China Sea over the Spratly and Paracel Islands and maritime areas.
Macron said France would also support Vietnam in key sectors, including critical minerals, high-speed rail, civil nuclear energy and aerospace, and focus on partnering with the Asian nation to help it transition away from dirty coal power while adding new capacity in renewable energy and civil nuclear power.
This is Macron’s first trip to Vietnam since he took office in 2017.
France and Vietnam share a comprehensive strategic partnership, Vietnam’s highest diplomatic status, also held with Russia, China, and the U.S.
