French President Emmanuel Macron and Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani are reported to have exchanged texts, to the annoyance of the President's wife, Brigitte. Photo / AFP
French President Emmanuel Macron and Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani are reported to have exchanged texts, to the annoyance of the President's wife, Brigitte. Photo / AFP
Brigitte Macron’s infamous “slap” of husband Emmanuel in Vietnam last year was prompted by a jealous row over messages from an Iranian actress, a French journalist has claimed.
Florian Tardif, a Paris Match political correspondent, made the allegation on French radio station RTL yesterday while promoting his new book, An(Almost) Perfect Couple.
The allegation prompted a swift denial from Brigitte Macron’s entourage. The Elysee Palace insisted the claim was not made in the book itself and said Brigitte Macron had already rejected it.
A spokesman said: “Brigitte Macron categorically denied this account directly to the author on March 5, specifying that she never looks at her husband’s mobile phone.”
The author told RTL that the incident, filmed in Vietnam on May 25 last year, was not a playful exchange, as the Elysee said at the time, but “a fairly significant argument”.
Tardif, who has been following the Macrons since 2017, said: “What happened is that she saw a message from a well-known figure, an Iranian actress, Golshifteh Farahani.”
He claimed that Macron had maintained a “platonic” relationship with the Franco-Iranian actress “for a few months”, although “that is no longer the case”, and had sent messages that “went quite far”, including: “I find you very pretty.”
Tardif added: “That is what I was told and repeated by those around them.”
Farahani, who left Iran for France in 2008, has previously dismissed speculation about her relationship with the President. Asked about earlier rumours by Gala magazine last August, she said: “The question is why people are interested in this kind of story. There is a lack of love in some people, and they need to create such romances to fill it.”
The footage from Hanoi airport in May last year showed Macron appearing in the doorway of the presidential plane before his wife’s hands briefly appeared, pushing his face.
France's first couple Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron made headlines in 2025 after what looked like a physical argument at Hanoi airport. Photo / AFP
At the time, Macron said the couple had merely been “bickering, or rather joking”, while an Elysee official described the moment as one of “decompression”, “banter” and “complicity” before the start of an official visit.
But Tardif said, “This private scene became public because there was a misunderstanding on the plane. We thought the argument was over. It wasn’t.”
He claimed the Elysee later regretted not being honest about the dispute, “simply because they could have shown at that moment that they were a couple, a real couple, not a perfect couple”.
The incident resurfaced in April when US President Donald Trump mocked Macron during a White House Easter event, saying the French President’s wife “treats him extremely badly” and joking that he was “still recovering from the right to the jaw”.
Macron called the remarks “neither elegant nor up to standard”. In an unusual show of unity, opposition politicians defended him, including Manuel Bompard, co-ordinator of the leftist France Unbowed party, who said Trump’s comments were “absolutely unacceptable”.
- The Telegraph
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