Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is not new to being publicly slapped. A woman once hit him as he walked toward her. the woman was in a white shirt and pair of black trousers with a nose mask. This incident happened before the president's guard overpowered her.
In 2021 two men were arrested after one of them slapped him in public. As seen on Twitter, the video showed Macron speaking to a man clad in a green t-shirt as he walked outside and met with people standing behind a short fence in the Drome region of southeastern France.
"A bas la Macronie." shouted the man. The phrase loosely translates to "down with Macron." the man later pulled Macron closer to him and landed the slap.
The man claimed he acted out of impulse in court, but the prosecutor cited it as a deliberate act. He received four months in prison.
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The French president dismissed the attacks as isolated, emphasizing that "ultra-violent people" should not be allowed to hijack the public debate. He added, "There have been moments of very high tension and violence in our country which I've had to experience as president, during the gilets Jaunes crisis. But society is in a different place today."
Various media houses have had to retract their stories citing the incident and video as old. Emmanuel Macron was not slapped for the third time, but as protests continue to happen in France, it is not a guarantee that it will not happen again.
