(AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Friday that Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte were “fine,” after a viral video appeared to show her shoving the French president’s face on a trip to Vietnam.
“Make sure the door remains closed,” the three-times married Trump quipped to reporters when asked if he had any “world leader to world leader marital advice” for Macron about the video. “That was not good,” added Trump, who was holding a joint press conference with billionaire Elon Musk in the Oval Office.
The incident was filmed just as the door of the French presidential plane swung open after landing in Hanoi on Sunday. It showed Brigitte Macron, 72, sticking out both her hands and giving her husband’s face a shove. Macron, 47, appeared startled but quickly recovered and turns to wave through the open door.
The 78-year-old US president, who has long had a “bromance” with his French counterpart, said he had been in touch with him since. “I spoke to him. He’s fine. They’re fine. They’re two really good people. I know them very well,” added Trump. “I don’t know what that was all about.”
Macron himself denied on Monday that the couple had been having a domestic dispute. He blamed disinformation campaigns for trying to put false meaning on the footage.
Musk, who was marking his departure from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, meanwhile took the chance to joke at Macron’s expense. Asked about a black eye he was sporting, the tycoon replied, “I wasn’t anywhere near France,” to the apparent puzzlement of a reporter who asked him to explain the comment. Musk then said it was his son who caused the injury with a punch.
© 2024 AFP
