Video of Macron's wife who pushes him is the Russian disinformation, he says: NPR

French President Emmanuel Macron plays down a viral video that seems to show his wife who pushes him in the face and describes it as part of a recent disinformation campaign against him.

The film material made by The Associated Press on Sunday shows Macron, who is in the open door of his aircraft after learning in Hanoi, Vietnam. He seems to talk to someone when a few red -sleeved arms stretch out and push him in the face.

Macron looks short, takes a step back and quickly turns to the cameras. French First Lady Brigitte Macron, who wears a red jacket, appears behind him and they go down the steps next to each other. Macron seems to offer her his arm that she does not accept.

In the course of the film material, the French media reported that the Élysée Palace, Macron's office, initially dismissed it as a product of artificial intelligence. But on Monday they confirmed the authenticity of the video.

“It was a moment when the president and his wife relaxed one last time before the journey started with laughter,” said the Élysée, according to Reuters. “It was a moment of close.”

The marriage of the macarons has long been the subject of controversy.

Macron fell in love with his high school drama teacher Brigitte Auzière when he was only 15 years old. She was 24 years older and married to three children. Although Macron's parents sent him to Paris to end school, he kept in touch with Auzière and swore to marry her one day – what he did in 2007.

Macron, whose visit to Vietnam begins a one -week tour through Southeast Asia, said reporters on Monday that the video simply “had to be disputed and rather joked with my wife”.

“I am surprised by it becomes a global catastrophe in which people even develop theories to explain them,” he said, according to a translation from the New York Times. “It's nonsense.”

Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, told NPR that it is not surprising that a video that shows a world guide in such a position would become viral or that it would be used to promote a specific agenda.

“In today's digital environment, I think that it is not the question of whether it will be viral, it is what people want to use this video,” he said. In this case, Macron – and other disinformation experts – say Russia the moment to try to make him look weak.

It is not the first Macron video that has been becoming viral lately

This is not the first time that a video of Macron has become viral. He noticed that the aircraft video is real, the public interpretation is not wrong – and it gave another example of the online disinformation to undermine it in the past few weeks.

At the beginning of this month, a video of the Macron meeting with the German and British leaders made headlines on a train to Kyiv when some social media users speculated that a tissue lying on the table was actually a bag of cocaine.

The Élysée exposed these rumors in a contribution on social media and said they were spread by the enemies of France at home and abroad.

“When European unity becomes impractical, the disinformation goes so far to make a simple fabric like drugs look like,” wrote.

Days later, another moment attracted attention when a persistent handshake between Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was aware of the wet viral at a summit in Albania.

Video material showed how Erdogan held Macron's middle finger for over 10 seconds before finally starting when both laughed.

The spectators speculated whether this was a mistake, a power play or something else. Macron assured reporters on Monday that, like the other recent incidents, it was harmless.

“There have been three weeks – if you look at the international agenda of the President of the French Republic from Kyiv to Tirana to Hanoi, there are people who saw the videos and believe that I shared a bag of cocaine that I had a 'Mano a Mano' with a Turkish president and that I just had a fight with my wife,” he said. “None of this is true.”

Macron – and experts – accuse Russia

Macron expressly condemned “networks that fall back quite well”, as the AFP translates, including French extremists and “the Russians”.

The aircraft video seems to have been reinforced online by Russian social media accounts, including at least one Kremlin official.

According to AFP, the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, wrote on Telegram that Macron had received a “right hook from his wife”, and speculated that his office could accuse Russia by explanation.

“Maybe it was the 'hand of the Kremlin'?” She wrote.

Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the new school, says NPR that the video in Russia has become considerably viral because Macron's public image of the hardness – generally (remember these 2024 box photos?) And towards Russia (who has spoken about European countries in the past few months, the troops in Ukrains in Ukrain strewn).

Macron positions itself as a “huge confrontation” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, explains Khrushcheva, especially since Russia has launched his full invasion of Ukraine.

“Macron pretends that he is very macho, but look at him, it's all a performance … because he was beaten by the woman,” she says, explaining the Russian perspective. “So in this sense, of course, it got viral and became a joke for the Russians … How 'He's hard on Russia? Look at it, he's not even hard for his wife.'”

Linvill from Clemson says that pro-Russian voices can frame the video as a joke, but actually send them a “very serious message”. He says that you will use this video – and similar content – to present Macron as stupid or powerless.

“Everything you can do to remove the general perception of him as a strong leader will take advantage of it,” he says, adding that such characterizations also strengthen Putin's domestic image by looking more competently compared to Macron.

According to Linvill, it is not unusual for Russia to address Western leaders in this way, but Macron's fame and his advocacy representation in NATO make him “goal number one”. At every moment Macron and his team have to defend against this type of attack, says Linvill, a moment that “stops her from keeping the West together”.

“I think we see a change in a decades of status quo, which prefers the West, and Russia and China and other countries that stand against the West and NATO try to remove the remains of these traditions and these standards,” he says.

“And these incremental attacks on leaders such as Macron – who try to put the dam into the dam, so to speak, and keep the West together – these attacks will continue and they will continue to work to undermine its legitimacy.”

Jaclyn Diaz from NPR has contributed to the reporting.