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EMMANUEL Macron has been forced to reveal the reason why his wife Brigitte pushed him in the face in the embarrassing moment caught on camera.
Viral footage shows the French leader's wife shoving him in the mouth and jaw after landing in Vietnam for the start of their Southeast Asia tour.
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The unbelievable moment captured at Hanoi airport showed Macron facing his wife - who is out of the frame - as the plane's doors opened.
Despite Brigitte not being visible, her arms are soon seen raising as she shoves a stern-looking Macron in the face.
Appearing shocked, the French leader immediately notices the doors open and quickly turns to wave at the sea of cameras at the bottom of the plane steps.
Macron has since slammed claims that the pair were in a heated argument and instead said they were "squabbling and, rather, joking".
He added that the bizarre incident as been overblown into "a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe".
The French leader also argued that the clip and viral reaction to it offered a cautionary tale about disinformation in the social media age.
Macron's office were also forced to speak out, downplaying the surprising interaction.
His office said: "It was a moment where the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by horsing around.
"It's a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists."
Despite Macron's attempt to defuse claims that they weren't in a heated argument, the couple's body language immediately afterwards seems to suggest otherwise.
France slams ‘cocaine train’ conspiracy spread by Russia after vid falsely claimed to show Macron ‘hiding bag’ with Keir
Brigitte and Macron emerge together from the aircraft and walk down the staircase, with the French leader extending his arm to his wife.
But she takes hold of the handrail of the walkway for support instead, potentially due to an explosive argument they could have had inside.
The politician was just 15 when he started a relationship with the then mother-of-three, his French literature teacher.
Macron was in Hanoi to begin a week-long tour of Southeast Asia, where he will also visit Indonesia and Singapore.
The French leader has repeatedly been targeted by conspiracy theories and deepfakes.
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He previously had to deny "false and fabricated" rumours his wife was born a man, dubbing the transgender claims as being typified misogynistic online attacks on women.
And recently he blasted a fake Russian claim that he had a bag of cocaine on the table when he was pictured on his way to Kyiv with Keir Starmer and Germany's Friedrich Merz.
Pro-Russian social media accounts initiated the cocaine conspiracy theory - which spread rapidly online.
One account posted on X: "Macron, Starmer and Merz caught on video on their return from Kiev. A bag of white powder on the table.
"Macron quickly pockets it, Merz hides the spoon. No explanation given."
Even Russia's foreign ministry even poured petrol on the flames, when its spokesperson Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram that “a Frenchman, an Englishman and a German” had been spotted with cocaine paraphernalia on a train.
She wrote: “The fate of Europe is being decided by utterly (drug) dependent individuals.
"It’s as if the Almighty Himself is lifting the veil on this putrid spectacle."
Macron & Brigette's romance
EMMANUEL Macron, the youngest president in France's history, met his future wife when he was just 15 years old.
Macron was Brigitte's drama student in school - where she would read his writing out to the class.
When Macron hit the limelight, footage of him kissing his future wife on the cheek – when he was just a teen and she was his married teacher - emerged.
Macron, now 46, shared a classroom at a Catholic school with Brigitte's daughter Laurence - who is the same age as him.
His parents were stunned when they learned that their son was romantically involved with his teacher as they believed he was actually in love with Laurence, reports Reuters.
Writer Anne Fulda, who penned the book Emmanuel Macron: A Perfect Young Man, spoke to the politician’s parents about the unconventional romance, which happened while Brigitte was still married to the father of her three children.
His parents were shocked by the explosive revelation and removed their teen son from the school in Amiens, in northern France, and sent him to finish his education in Paris.
Macron married his wife in 2007 after Brigitte’s previous marriage ended in divorce.
The former economics minister is step-father to his wife’s three adult children, including son Sebastien who is two years older than Macron.
Macron does not have any biological children with his wife, although he is also the step-grandfather of Brigitte’s seven grandchildren.
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