The slap heard ’round the world is now following the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, as he visits Vietnam with his wife Brigitte. The latter appeared to accost Macron with a hard slap to the face when they were deboarding their plane in Vietnam.
Macron later claimed that it was all in jest.
“My wife and I were squabbling, we were rather joking, and I was taken by surprise,” Macron told reporters in Hanoi. Now it’s “become a kind of planetary catastrophe, and some are even coming up with theories.,”
The headline-sparking image follows a week in which Macron was accused of carrying a bag of cocaine and of verbally and physically sparring with Turkish President Erdogan, according to the French publication, Le Monde.