'Everyone must calm down': Macron says slap is fake news

President Macron and his spokespeople blamed conspiracy theorists, artificial intelligence and even the Russians after images of his wife slapping him spread online.

French President Emmanuel Macron is not in a “domestic conflict” with his wife Brigitte, any more than he is addicted to cocaine, he said on Monday in a reassurance after the rapid circulation of images published on Monday . As the president’s official jet landed in Vietnam, a long shot was captured by press cameras showing Brigitte Macron pushing her husband, the president, away from his face with both hands, writes Oliver JJ Lane .

The initial reaction of the presidential office at the Elysée Palace was to deny that the images were real, Le Figaro notes . Initially, it was claimed that the video was the work of artificial intelligence, even though it was soon confirmed to be real. What followed were briefings against the video, claiming that those who distributed it had an interest in doing so.

A source who briefed the president blamed “conspiracy theorists” and “pro-Russian” accounts, saying that Macron “jokes with his wife before official events, and she always reacts like that… It wasn’t even a slap.”

However, this was not enough to calm the matter down and a few hours later the president himself spoke out, insisting that the video showed as much of an argument as another recent viral video showed Macron stuffing a bag of cocaine into his pocket. Macron was forced to deny the story at the time, saying that the small white object was in fact a tissue, releasing high-resolution images to back up his argument.

President Macron said, referring to previous claims about his alleged drug use or relationships with other world leaders: “For three weeks… there are people who have watched videos and think that I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a mano-a-mano with a Turkish president and that I am now having an argument with my wife… None of this is true… everyone must calm down and be interested above all in the content of the news.”

Macron also blamed the Russians, saying the accounts that shared the video online belonged to identifiable “networks” and “extremists in France.”

The French president and his wife’s relationship has been the subject of much speculation ever since he ran for president, given that it is unusual by Western standards for her to have been Macron’s high school teacher, and thus the significant age gap. Macron went so far as to personally declare last year that his wife is not a transvestite or transgender, calling it a false conspiracy theory when a French court ruled the speculation was false and amounted to defamation.