Two people were arrested after a man slapped the French president as he was approaching a small crowd, prompting condemnation of the attack across the political spectrum.
A man slapped President Emmanuel Macron of France in the face on Tuesday during a visit by the French leader to the southeast of the country, prompting swift political condemnation as a video of the incident spread rapidly on social media. In the footage filmed at midday by a witness, Mr. Macron is seen approaching a small crowd of people in Tain-l’Hermitage, a town in the Drôme region of France that he was visiting to speak with members of the food and restaurant industry ahead of a new loosening of Covid 19-related restrictions this week. As Mr. Macron was starting a conversation with a longhaired man wearing a khaki T-shirt, the man gripped his forearm and slapped the president on the face, the video showed. The man also shouted “Down with Macronie,” a term sometimes used derogatively to refer to Mr. Macron’s administration. Mr. Macron’s security detail quickly pulled the man away and pounced on him. Local authorities said two people had been arrested in connection with the incident, including the man who slapped Mr. Macron, but they did not provide details on their identities. “The president had gotten back into his car after visiting a school and had gotten back out because onlookers were calling him,” the prefecture for the Drôme area said in a statement to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
