Regardless of the country, some political tension is always expected, but one French villager took his political ideology a bit far on Tuesday. Emmanuel Macron, the current French president, was visiting a small town in the south of France earlier this week, and upon seeing a group of locals he jogged towards them to greet them. Shortly after he started shaking hands, one person in the crowd got a clean look and slapped Macron in the face.
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According to NPR, the person who slapped Macron yelled, “Montjoie Saint-Denis, à bas la Macronie,” which combines a 12th-century royalist slogan that’s commonly used today by the far right with the phrase, “down with Macronism.”
After getting slapped, Macron almost looked as if he was prepared to swing back at the perpetrator, but the French president’s security detail swiftly removed him from the situation. In an interview with a local newspaper, Macron severely played down the incident, saying, “Everything is fine. You have to relativize this incident, which is I think an isolated one. We can’t let this take over the public discussion of more important issues which concern everyone’s lives. They don’t deserve it.”
Check out the video of Emmanuel Macron getting slapped below.
Emmanuel Macron will be up for reelection as president next year, so stay tuned to see if this viral video of him getting slapped in the face helps or hurts his chances of winning the election next year.
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