It was the slap that shook the world. Not so much from shock but laughter, as cameras caught the Macrons having a domestic on an international flight.<\/p>\n
A book published this week in France claims that Brigitte slapped her husband after discovering<\/a> \u201ca steamy message\u201d on Emmanuel\u2019s phone sent by an actress.<\/p>\n According to Un Couple (Presque) Parfait, \u2018Slapgate\u2019 wasn\u2019t the first time Brigitte had to bring her husband to heel over a woman<\/p>\n The books says the sender was\u00a0Iranian-born Golshifteh Farahani, who came to prominence in 2008 when she starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the Ridley Scott film, Body of Lies.<\/p>\n Brigitte allegedly found the message as the presidential jet landed at Hanoi airport in May last year. In a fit of rage she was seen swinging a right at Macron just as the doors of the aircraft opened.<\/p>\n Monsieur le President later tried to downplay the incident but many people, notably Donald Trump, won\u2019t let Macron forget his humiliation. Last month the President had a joke at the expense of his French counterpart, telling an audience that Macron was still \u201crecovering from the right to the jaw\u2019, and that his wife \u201ctreats him extremely badly.\u201d Macron described Trump\u2019s jibes as \u201cneither elegant nor up to standard\u201d and consequently said \u201cthey do not merit a response.\u201d<\/p>\n Presumably Macron thinks much the same thing about Un Couple (Presque) Parfait, the book written by Florian Tardif, a reputable political correspondent at Paris Match.<\/p>\n The magazine published<\/a> an extract of the book on Wednesday. According to Tardif, \u201cwhat hurt Brigitte was not so much the contents of the message as what it hinted at.\u201d As a friend of the first lady said, the 73-year-old Brigitte \u201csaw herself being erased.\u201d<\/p>\n