Macron's office forced into embarrassing U-turn over explanation behind 'wife's slap' in heated exchange

Emmanuel Macron's office had to make a U-turn over that footage of his wife Brigitte appearing to 'slap' him in the face.

The French president, 47, was recently caught on camera disembarking a plane in Vietnam, where he could be seen as the aircraft's door was being opened.

Standing out of shot and just off to the side was his wife Brigitte, 72, and as President Macron was seen standing in the doorway, her hands reached out and seemingly made contact with his face.

The incident has been described as a 'push' and a 'slap', and right after it happened, Macron looked out to the cameras and gave a little wave before he and his wife descended the stairs.

He appeared to offer her his arm as they walked down, but she instead held onto the handrail.

The incident occurred as they disembarked a plane in Vietnam (LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Naturally, this prompted a lot of discussion over what exactly had happened, and adding to the confusion was some mixed messaging from the Élysée, the official residence of the French president.

Several outlets including CNN reported that the Élysée had initially denied the incident, with a French outlet called Breves de presse claiming that they had suggested it might have been AI-generated and spread by pro-Russian accounts before later confirming the footage was real and saying it was a 'moment of togetherness'.

Macron himself later spoke about the footage, saying: "There’s a video showing me joking and teasing my wife and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe, with people even coming up with theories to explain it.

"The videos are all real, and yes, sometimes people tamper with them, but people are attributing all kinds of nonsense to them."

He said the whole incident was 'nothing' and when they later visited Indonesia, they departed the plane arm in arm.

Subsequent attempts to get off planes have been far less controversial (LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images)

A body language expert had claimed that they didn't think the moment caught on camera was the couple being playful, suggesting that in subsequent appearances they were 'looking like a bride and groom on their wedding day' in an attempt to show all was well.

A lip reader alleged that Brigitte told her husband to 'stay away, you loser' and that the French president said 'let's try, please'.

The couple met when she was his 39-year-old teacher and he was a 15-year-old school student.

She was a married mother-of-three at the time, and one of her children was Macron's classmate.

LADbible has contacted the Élysée for comment.