{"id":12050,"date":"2025-05-28T17:56:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T14:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/?p=12050"},"modified":"2025-05-28T17:56:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T14:56:49","slug":"macron-has-been-slapped-in-the-face-in-more-ways-than-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/?p=12050","title":{"rendered":"Macron has been slapped in the face in more ways than one"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whatever happened between the French president and his wife on their trip to Vietnam, it completely overshadowed the politics of the visit<\/strong><\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron went to Vietnam to ink some massive deals \u2013 like a \u20ac9 billion Airbus order, which was supposed to be the centerpiece of the trip.<\/p>\n

But before he could even set foot on Vietnamese soil, as the plane\u2019s hatch opened, his wife Brigitte was caught on camera<\/a> doing what can only be described as a vertical push-up right on Macron\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

At first glance, it looked like perhaps she was just trying to set the vibe for the visit, with a reenactment of what happened to the French the last time they got a little too confident in Vietnam. In any case, suddenly this image of the presidential couple had everyone zooming in like it was a lost Da Vinci.<\/p>\n

Cue the Elysee\u2019s damage control<\/a>. First:\u00a0It\u2019s a deepfake.<\/em>\u00a0Then:\u00a0The Russians did it.<\/em>\u00a0And finally:\u00a0Okay fine, it\u2019s real, but it\u2019s just two people \u201cdecompressing.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Let the one among us who\u2019s never \u201cunwound\u201d<\/em> by shoving our spouse in the face cast the first baguette.<\/p>\n

Final answer? Apparently so. A moment of complicity between longtime partners. Like a secret handshake. To the face. By the way, do the Elysee flaks themselves also count as conspiracy theorists? They\u2019re the ones who cycled through every possible scapegoat short of blaming climate change \u2013 until they realized the Americans had the raw footage too.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"FILE
Macron explains slap from wife<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course this slapstick moment didn\u2019t make it into the glossy PR reel, which also featured Macron and his wife descending from the presidential plane. He appeared to gallantly offer her an arm as they deplaned \u2013 which she promptly ignored. His other hand formed a fist. For whom? Who knows. But France should probably duck.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance is a power of peace and balance,\u201d<\/em> Macron wrote<\/a> above the promotional video on X.\u00a0it would have been a hard sell posting that directly above a video that starts with him catching a couple of \u201cpeaceful\u201d<\/em> palms straight to the jaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen some choose to withdraw, France chooses to build bridges,\u201d<\/em> he added.\u00a0Sure,\u00a0but it kind of looked like you withdrew to the other side of the cabin, my guy.<\/p>\n

Weird? Well, maybe to the peasants. But apparently, it\u2019s completely normal for the presidential couple to throw hands whenever someone cracks a joke. \u201cIt\u2019s not even a slap\u2026it\u2019s a gesture that mimics a punch in the face. We\u2019ve seen this sketch 100 times, it\u2019s their way of decompressing before official performances,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>explained<\/a> a source described by Le Parisien as \u201cclose to\u201d<\/em> Macron.\u00a0<\/a>So, their opening act for a show of diplomacy on the world stage is something that looks like it was cribbed from a Three Stooges sketch? Alrighty then.<\/p>\n

In instances where you and I may laugh, these two just go full Rocky and Adrian, minus the gloves. You know they do have gloves though. We\u2019ve already seen them used for Macron\u2019s boxing photo shoots. The ones that absolutely are not meant to show how he\u2019s going to personally fight Russian President Vladimir Putin. That is, if he ever gets past Brigitte in round one.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"RT\"
The slap in Hanoi: Why we should sympathize with Macron<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Macron later expressed frustration with everyone trying to decode what he insists is totally standard behavior. \u201cWe are teasing each other and having a bit of fun with my wife. I am surprised by this. It becomes a kind of… geoplanetary catastrophe where some are even developing theories, and I see a lot of crazy people spending their day explaining all these interpretations in videos,\u201d<\/em> Macron explained<\/a>. \u201cThere are people who watched videos and think that I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a one-on-one with the Turkish president, and that right now, I am in the process of having a quarrel with my wife. None of this is true, yet these three videos are real.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, yeah \u2013 the napkin on the train to Ukraine that some folks mistook for a bag of cocaine. Maybe because Macron\u2019s face looked a bit red as he snatched it up when the media walked in. Almost forgot about that one. Thanks for the reminder. Indeed, who hasn\u2019t casually left a used Kleenex just sitting in the middle of the table with other folks. It\u2019s a wonder that no one has yet speculated that Brigitte wasn\u2019t just trying to give Macron one last hit of Kleenex before he stepped out of the plane. One for the road, as it were.<\/p>\n

As for the \u201cone-on-one\u201d<\/em> with Erdogan? That\u2019s a stretch. Macron\u2019s flattering himself. It was more of a one-on-none. Erdogan held Macron\u2019s finger like he was selecting a baguette from a Parisian bakery. If dignity were Kleenex, Macron would have struggled to blow his nose on what was left \u2013 let alone use it for his next Kleenex Rorschach Test.<\/p>\n

Yes, Macron technically came to Vietnam to ink major defense and aerospace deals in a power move to reassert France\u2019s relevance in the Indo-Pacific, counterbalance China, and show that France can still punch above its weight (even without Brigitte\u2019s spontaneous contribution). But between the bungled PR, the conspiracy fodder, and Erdogan\u2019s diplomatic wedgie, it\u2019s hard to tell if Macron\u2019s trips are actual diplomacy \u2013 or rather just episodes of reality TV with an unlimited travel budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whatever happened between the French president and his wife on their trip to Vietnam, it completely overshadowed the politics of the visit French President Emmanuel Macron went to Vietnam to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}