Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron hit back at Donald Trump on Thursday after the US president mocked Macron’s relationship with his wife as he chided France for refusing to hitch the US-Israeli offensive in opposition to Iran.
The two leaders have touted their pleasant relationship prior to now, particularly throughout Trump’s first time period in workplace. But at a personal occasion Wednesday, Trump lambasted the French chief for not coming to America’s support within the Middle East.
“I called up France, Macron, whose wife treats him extremely badly, (he is) still recovering from the right to the jaw,” the US president mentioned, apparently referencing a video from 2025 during which Brigitte Macron appeared to shove her husband within the face aboard the French presidential jet.
Pressed to reply to Trump’s feedback throughout an official go to to South Korea on Thursday, Macron mentioned that his US counterpart’s phrases “weren’t elegant, and they weren’t up to par.”
Macron’s wife, almost 25 years his senior, has been a delicate topic for the French president. Last 12 months, the couple filed a defamation lawsuit in opposition to US podcaster Candace Owens over baseless claims that Brigitte might be a person.
While European allies have been broadly supportive of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure final 12 months, the size of the present marketing campaign and the shortage of a transparent technique this time round have restricted help.
France has deployed some army forces to the Persian Gulf area, sending jets and air protection methods to guard Arab allies within the gulf and deploying naval property off the coast of Cyprus, a European Union member that has come underneath drone assault.
However, the French chief has refused to backstop the American marketing campaign with naval property to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The French supply to supply protecting ships as soon as preventing has peaked has drawn mockery from the White House.
But France has held agency, becoming a member of European allies Spain and Italy in banning using its airbases to US plane participating within the bombing marketing campaign.
The French and US leaders loved a chummy relationship throughout Trump’s first time period, however they’ve clashed over worldwide coverage during the last 12 months.
What began as a really public battle of wills, with the 2 bodily testing one another’s handshakes throughout their first conferences in Trump’s first time period, has morphed into much more private sparring. Trump has shared personal messages from the French president and has commonly achieved impressions of the Frenchman in public.
As for Macron, he appeared visibly irritated at having to reply to Trump’s feedback on his wife Thursday, and he has grown accustomed to sharing generally stern rebukes of White House coverage — and tariffs — throughout Trump’s second time period.
Trump’s newest feedback sparked a backlash in France, the place the non-public lives of politicians are granted far higher privateness than within the United States.
Leading far-left lawmaker Manuel Bompard known as the US president’s feedback “absolutely unacceptable,” whereas the centrist president of the French National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, additionally criticized Trump.
“We are currently discussing the future of the world,” she mentioned. “We see that our countrymen are extremely affected, and during this, there are people dying on the battlefield, and we have a president who is laughing, who is mocking others,” she instructed French radio station France Info.
Elina Baudier Kim contributed to this report.