Macron plays down apparent shove from wife in Vietnam

By Thinh Nguyen and Elizabeth Pineau

HANOI (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron played down on Monday an incident in which his wife, Brigitte, pushed him in the face as the couple arrived in Vietnam to begin a tour of Southeast Asia.

In a video, Brigitte Macron appeared to shove her husband before he descended from the presidential plane late on Sunday, causing him to step back before he recovered and waved to the cameras on the tarmac below.

She remained momentarily hidden behind the plane's fuselage, blocking any view of her body language. The couple, who have been married since 2007, then descended the steps together, with Brigitte refusing her husband's arm. 

"I was bickering, or rather joking, with my wife," Macron told reporters in Hanoi. "It's nothing."

He cautioned that this was not the first time in recent weeks that the content of videos of him had been twisted by people he described as "crackpots".

Macron cited a video shared on social media that showed him removing a crumpled white object from a table on a train during a visit to Ukraine. Some social media users suggested - without providing evidence - that the object was a bag of cocaine. Macron said it was a tissue and his office accused France's enemies of spreading fake news.

Earlier on Monday, an Elysee official said of the latest video: "It was a moment when the president and his wife were relaxing one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh."

"It was a moment of closeness."

Macron's visit to Vietnam, the first by a French president in almost a decade, comes as he aims to boost France's influence in its former colony.

Vietnam, which has a heavily export-driven economy, has made concessions to the U.S. in trade talks in a bid to avoid 46% tariffs. But Brussels has concerns that Vietnam's efforts to buy more American goods could come at Europe's expense.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to impose 50% tariffs on imports from the European Union, but softened his stance two days later, restoring a July 9 deadline for talks between Washington and Brussels.

(Reporting by Thinh Nguyen, Elizabeth Pineau and Dominique Vidalon in Paris. Writing by Makini Brice. Editing by Richard Lough and Mark Potter)