VIRAL VIDEO: Woman openly slaps French President, Emmanuel Macron months after similar incident

A video clip, which went viral on social media, purportedly shows a woman in an olive green t-shirt slapping President Macron while he was going somewhere.

The clip also shows some media persons present at the spot at the time of the alleged incident.

Emmanuel Macron got slapped up again pic.twitter.com/puqyPnJOyB

— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) November 20, 2022

Macron’s security detail quickly pulled the woman away and pounced on her, media reports said.

NewsClick Nigeria reports that in a similar incident on June 8, last year, a man slapped President Macron across the face during a visit by the French leader to the country’s southeast.

According to The New York Times, citing footage of the incident, Macron was approaching a small crowd of people in Tain-l’Hermitage, a town in the Drome region of France that he was visiting to speak with members of the food and restaurant industry ahead of a new loosening of Covid 19-related restrictions that week, when the incident took place.

The footage showed the attacker grabbing the French president’s forearm and slapping him across the face as he was about to start a conversation with a longhaired man clad a khaki T-shirt.

The man also shouted “Down with Macronie,” a term sometimes used derogatorily to refer to Macron’s administration.

According to The New York Times, two people were arrested in the case, including the attacker. But the daily could not provide details on their identities.

Before slapping Macron, the man shouted a slogan sometimes associated with royalist or far-right activists, although his exact motivations were unclear.

In 2018, a man affiliated to Action Francaise, a royalist group, shouted the same slogan as he threw a pie in the face of a leftist lawmaker, reported The New York Times.

Unfazed after the attack, Macron resumed talking and shaking hands with people. He later said later he was fine and that the slap was an “isolated incident” that should be “put into perspective.”

“The overwhelming majority of French people are interested in substantive issues,” The New York Times quoted Macron as saying in an interview with a local newspaper, adding that a minority of “ultraviolent individuals” should not “take possession of the public debate.”