What happened on the plane we don’t know but crisis management doesn’t make things better
It was when the French government plan had landed in Hanoi in Vietnam on Monday night that the incident occurred. The presidential couple would start an official state visit to Vietnam.
But before they stepped out, something unexpected happened. On video pictures that a photographer from the news agency AP caught, two hands are seen flying up in the face of Emmanuel Macron. He backs back, turns his head and smiles a little awkward to the output on the plane; Maybe because he realizes that someone may have seen what just happened.
The person who touched him was his wife, Brigitte Macron. A few seconds later she comes out with him – and both look right. Emmanuel holds out his right arm, but Brigitte seems to ignore it when the couple goes down the stairs.
What was it We saw there? A marital quarrel? A kind of play and a wife who jokingly pushes her husband?
It’s hard to know.
What we know, on the other hand, is that the Russian propaganda channel Russia Today quickly wired out the AP images. And that lots of accounts spread them on social media.
Suspected Russian -controlled accounts have spread conspiracy theories and unfounded information about the presidential couple in recent months; Everything from alleged cocaine abuse to Brigitte Macron really being a man. So when the Elysé Palace’s PR people were told about the image sequence, they first thought that there were AI-generated images. According to information to Le Monde, Emmanuel Macron must have given green light to assume that it was fake.
But French media Soon discovered that the source was precisely the news agency AP. And then the questions became more.
Macron was forced to change his version. Now it was « playful fucking », according to the president, who said he was « surprised » that some « tokstolls » tried to make this a « planetary disaster ». He again blamed Russian magic accounts – which certainly played a certain role.
But the president’s own crisis management does not directly help him this time.
Read more:
Macron was pushed by his wife – the video was dismissed as fake
