French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent trip to Vietnam was supposed to be a meticulously choreographed diplomatic performance – a showcase of French soft power and economic clout in the Indo-Pacific. A €9 billion Airbus order, renewed defense talks, and strategic cooperation against China’s growing influence were all on the table. But instead of headlines focused on commerce and geopolitics, the world found itself transfixed by what looked like a surreal piece of physical comedy between the president and his wife, Brigitte Macron, at the top of the airplane stairs.

As the hatch opened, the cameras were already rolling, ready to capture the usual stately deplaning footage. Instead, they caught something far less dignified: Brigitte Macron appearing to shove or “slap” her husband’s face with a gesture that hovered somewhere between a vertical push-up and a well-rehearsed skit. Within hours, the moment went viral – and the high-stakes diplomacy meant to define the trip got completely overshadowed by what many initially assumed was either a deepfake, a joke, or a shocking breach of protocol.

In any case, the damage was done before Macron’s polished wingtips hit Vietnamese tarmac. The slap-like gesture, which immediately triggered a frenzy of zoom-ins, frame-by-frame analyses, and speculative Twitter threads, became the defining moment of the visit. French officials scrambled into damage control mode. First came the denials- the footage must have been manipulated. Then came the scapegoating- perhaps it was a Russian smear attempt. Finally, Elysee officials admitted it was real, but simply a “moment of complicity” between spouses – an innocuous display of affection misunderstood by outsiders.

“Let the one among us who’s never ‘unwound’ by shoving our spouse in the face cast the first baguette,” one sarcastic commentator quipped online, capturing the general absurdity of the explanations offered by the presidential palace.

Meanwhile, Macron’s PR team released a sanitized promotional video showing the couple descending the stairs together, omitting the slap entirely. The president can be seen gallantly offering his arm to Brigitte, who ignores it. His other hand is clenched in a tight fist – not the most reassuring visual, given the context. This was, after all, supposed to be a trip about peace, bridge-building, and France’s constructive role in Asia. “France is a power of peace and balance,” Macron wrote in the caption above the official clip on X (formerly Twitter). The irony was too thick to ignore.

“When some choose to withdraw, France chooses to build bridges,” he added, presumably referencing the West’s wavering presence in Southeast Asia. But with the public now fixated on whether or not France’s first couple has a habit of slap-boxing before public appearances, the message rang hollow.

Perhaps the oddest part of the entire affair was the casual manner in which sources close to Macron attempted to normalize the moment. According to Le Parisien, someone described as close to the president insisted, “It’s not even a slap… it’s a gesture that mimics a punch in the face. We’ve seen this sketch 100 times.” Evidently, this physical pantomime is part of the couple’s backstage routine, a kind of oddball “secret handshake” to blow off steam before official events.

But the question remains: who decided that a presidential tour – particularly one aimed at cementing France’s strategic relevance in Asia – was the right venue for physical comedy reminiscent of The Three Stooges? Macron has always attempted to walk a fine line between modern charisma and traditional statesmanship, but this moment veered well into reality TV territory.

And this isn’t the first time Macron has found himself at the center of bizarre speculation tied to viral footage. He referenced this himself in a follow-up statement meant to tamp down the growing media circus. “We 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,” he told reporters. “There 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.”

Indeed, Macron referred to a prior incident on a train to Ukraine where an oddly crumpled white napkin was caught on camera and mistaken by some online sleuths for something more illicit. The resulting memes – and conspiracy-laden interpretations – once again highlighted the gap between Macron’s carefully curated image and the unpredictable realities of modern media consumption.

Another awkward moment came when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an was seen holding Macron’s finger in a widely shared video – not so much a diplomatic handshake as a scene that resembled someone inspecting bread at a boulangerie. No amount of French polish could disguise how badly that encounter undercut Macron’s attempt to present himself as a decisive power broker.

All of this leads to a simple, if troubling, conclusion: Macron’s foreign tours are increasingly being hijacked by unintended slapstick, unflattering optics, and a chronic lack of message discipline. For a leader who insists on being taken seriously as a champion of European autonomy, a defender of liberal democracy, and a rival to the likes of Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, these repeated gaffes are more than embarrassing – they’re politically costly.

In Vietnam, Macron’s visit was intended to mark a new phase in French engagement with Southeast Asia. The Airbus deal alone, worth €9 billion, could have been a headline-grabbing moment. France has been pushing to offer an alternative to both Chinese and American influence in the Indo-Pacific, aiming to revive its post-colonial relevance through soft power, defense ties, and economic partnerships. Yet none of those themes managed to capture the global spotlight.

Instead, the moment that defined the trip was a split-second motion of Brigitte Macron’s hand – and its impact on the president’s face. For a nation already skeptical of Macron’s sometimes aloof, technocratic image, the optics couldn’t have been worse. Not only did the trip fail to dominate the news cycle with its intended message, but it also handed fuel to critics at home and abroad who view the French leader as more performance artist than statesman.

And yet, in some strange way, this entire debacle underscores the challenges facing modern diplomacy. In an age when every moment is caught on camera, when every gesture can be meme-ified or reinterpreted through a thousand cultural lenses, statecraft now shares the stage with spectacle. For Macron, the question may no longer be how to steer France through turbulent global waters – but how to avoid turning every international summit into an episode of Macron & Brigitte: World Tour.

Until then, perhaps it’s time the French delegation invested in some PR advisors who know the difference between slapstick and statesmanship – or at least learned to keep the family sketch comedy routines behind closed doors.

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Source: Weekly Blitz :: Writings