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Slap, message, Vietnam
A gesture captured as Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron prepared to disembark in Hanoi, Vietnam in May 2025—Brigitte Macron pushing her husband’s face at face level—has been revisited in a new book by Paris Match journalist Florian Tardif, who links the moment to a message involving Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani.
“What happened is that she (Brigitte Macron) saw a message from a well-known personality. An Iranian actress: Golshifteh Farahani.”
In the account described by Le Parisien, Tardif says Brigitte Macron would have read a message from Farahani on the President’s phone during the flight, and that the President had maintained for several months a “platonic relationship” with the actress.
Le Parisien also quotes Tardif saying “What happened is that she (Brigitte Macron) saw a message from a well-known personality. An Iranian actress: Golshifteh Farahani.”
France 24, meanwhile, frames the renewed debate around the same Vietnam video and Tardif’s claim that “some messages went quite far,” including “I find you very pretty.”
Denials and competing motives
Brigitte Macron’s entourage denies that the Vietnam gesture was driven by the Iranian actress, telling Le Parisien that Brigitte Macron “never looked at her husband’s cellphone.”
Le Parisien reports that the entourage also said Brigitte Macron “has categorically denied this account directly to the author, on March 5, stating that she never looked into her husband’s mobile phone,” and that this detail had not been published by the author.
Emol adds that collaborators of Brigitte Macron denied the motives behind the gesture as jealousy toward Golshifteh Farahani, responding to Tardif’s version in which he says Brigitte saw “a message that she should never have read” on Emmanuel Macron’s cellphone.
In the same dispute over motives, Le Parisien says Emmanuel Macron’s entourage at the time described the moment as “joking around,” and it quotes a close aide saying “We were joking with my wife as we often do,” while Emmanuel Macron urged that “everyone must calm down.”
Europe-facing fallout
The renewed controversy has also been tied to how the story is being amplified and contested in Europe, including France 24’s discussion of a fake “Closer” cover circulating on X that it says never existed and that it contrasts with the real issue number “1091.”
“The number displayed on this fake magazine is 948.”
France 24 says the fake cover’s number was “948” and that the real Closer issue on newsstands this week is “1091,” while it also notes that the book revives the rumor of a “platonic relationship.”
Madame Figaro reports that Tardif told RTL that “This is a version I cross-checked. ... Everything that appears in the book is facts, facts and only facts,” and it adds that he claimed the Élysée “regrets” its lack of transparency.
Madame Figaro also says the footage of the “slap” had been spread on social networks by accounts hostile to the French president and by Donald Trump, who in April 2026 said Emmanuel Macron “was still recovering from the punch to the jaw.”
