France's first lady seen pushing Macron while landing in Vietnam; he says 'we were joking'
'Calm down'
Macron testily referred to the other incidents, including the images shot on a train to Kyiv where some accounts falsely claimed he shared cocaine with Merz and Starmer. But the object Macron removed from the table when the media entered was a tissue.
Erdogan, meanwhile, was filmed holding the president's finger at a summit.
"For three weeks... there are people who have watched videos and think I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a fight with the Turkish president, and that now I'm having a domestic dispute with my wife," said Macron.
"None of these are true," he said.
"Everyone needs to calm down," he added.
After the incident in Hanoi, the couple proceeded down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese officials, though Brigitte Macron did not take her husband's arm when he offered it.
The video circulated rapidly online, promoted particularly by accounts that are habitually hostile to the French leader.
Macron's office initially denied the authenticity of the images, before they were confirmed as genuine. A close associate of the president later described the incident as a couple's harmless "squabble."
'Nothing more'
Referring to the past incidents, Macron said: "In these three videos I took a tissue, shook someone's hand and just joked with my wife, as we do quite often. Nothing more."
"We have loads of accounts, anonymous or not, whose frustrations are going to their heads, including news commentators who said this morning that I have the diplomacy of a beaten man," he added.
He emphasised that all three videos were "completely authentic" but the meanings attached to them were not.
Vietnam is the first stop on Macron's almost week-long tour of Southeast Asia where he will pitch France as a reliable alternative to the United States and China. He will also visit Indonesia and Singapore.
The relationship between Macron, 47, and his 72-year-old wife has long been a subject of fascination at home and abroad.
She was a drama teacher and he a pupil when they met at a private school in their hometown of Amiens in northeast France. A mother of three children, Brigitte divorced her husband and began a relationship with Macron while he was in his late teens.
A high-profile first lady, she has taken legal action to counter false claims on social media about her gender.
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