Emmanuel Macron made a telling gesture shortly after his wife Brigitte seemingly “slapped” him, a body language expert has claimed. The French president had touched down in Vietnam on Sunday before his wife was caught on camera placing her hands on his face in an apparent slap, moments before they were due to leave the plane.
Footage of the incident, that was initially labelled “probable fake news” by French officials, has since been analysed by body language expert Judi James. She claims that it looks to be anything but “chamaillerie”, the French term for a bit of horsing around. As reported by The Sun, the video shows Macron, 47, standing by the plane’s door before Brigitte, 72, reaches out and seemingly shoves him in the face.
Judi said: “I find it shocking that they’ve attempted to explain it by saying that it was just play, just a couple letting off steam. Her hand comes out and presses against his face, and if anybody wants to try this on themselves, you’ll feel how vulnerable it makes you feel.”
She added that the French president looked “rather shocked” by the incident. He also clenched his fist which, according to Judi, was a clear indication about how he was feeling at the time.
She explained: “Macron looks rather shocked. We can see later on, if we look at a close up of his hand, we can see that it’s bored into a fist. The knuckles look white – so clearly a lot of pent up tension.”
Judi continued: “These are veterans of being on the world stage. They know that when the plane lands, if they did want to have a little bit of fun and laughter, they would do it before they got to the plane door.
“When we see them emerging, there’s this attempt to sort of do a glow up, to pretend that nothing happened. That’s not normal body language behaviour in any relationship. I find it very worrying, as well as disturbing.”
After the video surfaced, Macron and French officials downplayed the incident.
Macron said: “My wife and I were horsing around, having a joke, and I was surprised by that and that becomes a sort of geopolitical disaster. It’s nonsense.”
An aide added: “It was a moment when the president and his wife were unwinding one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh – it was a moment of complicity.”
Macron was just 15-years-old when he met Brigitte who was aged 39 and had three children at the time. The future First Lady was married and his drama teacher in school.