As the presidential plane landed in Hanoi, Brigitte Macron was videoed striking her stunned hubby-wubby under the chin.
The incident has received much publicity worldwide, yet some vital angles have been left uncovered. That’s understandable because no one knows for sure what caused that violent outburst, nor how often Mme Macron has to discipline Manny in that fashion.
When hard data aren’t available, one has to resort to conjecture reinforced by observation. As Sherlock Holmes explained to the hapless Dr Watson, there’s a big difference between seeing and observing, and most of the shocked onlookers saw but failed to observe.
To begin with, since the video is less than two seconds long, we don’t know whether what we saw was a single punch or part of a combination. I rather think the latter because the blow showed some pugilistic expertise.
Many commentators described it as either a slap or a push in the face. But it was neither. As anyone with experience of street fights will tell you, Brigitte struck Manny under the chin with the heel of her palm. I don’t know if she is indeed a man, as rumour has it, but she certainly throws a punch like a cage fighter.
This is one of the premier blows in the repertoire of violence, designed to inflict damage on the adversary while preserving the attacker’s knuckles from the likely damage of a fist punch.
If delivered with enough force, the blow can break the target’s neck, but I doubt Brigitte had a lethal intent. More usually, the open-palm uppercut is delivered to make the target lean backwards, leaving the lower part of his body exposed.
That’s why that distracting uppercut is usually followed by a knee in the groin, and I suspect that’s what Brigitte delivered, although the video was cut off before Manny bent forward, his face contorted in agony. The next blow in that combo would have been a chop on the back of the neck, but let’s not overindulge in guesswork.
From as much as I could lip-read, Manny moaned, “What’s this for, maman?”, to which Brigitte seems to have replied, “If I knew what it’s for, I’d have killed you, mon petit.”
Inadvertently though, Mme Macron served the noble cause of equality between the sexes, correcting the imbalance in the coverage of domestic violence. While much attention is paid to wife-beating, husband-beating receives much less publicity, although it too is rife.
Judging by that lip-read exchange, Brigitte wasn’t punishing Manny for any particular transgression. It’s more likely that the chastisement was meted out prophylactically, as part of a regular disciplining regimen.
Considering that the couple started their relationship when Manny was a 15-year-old schoolboy and 40-year-old Brigitte his mistress, in more ways than one, such interpretation isn’t far-fetched. That age difference has led some unworldly individuals to accuse Brigitte of paedophilia, but that shows woeful ignorance of French laws.
In fact, 15 is the age of consent in that naughty country, and Mme Auzière, as she then was, wasn’t committing statutory rape. However, she could have still found herself on the wrong side of the law by having sex with someone under her authority.
I could give you a long list of British teachers, both male and female, serving time for that sort of thing, but there is no point. Unlike the straitlaced Britons, the French are notoriously laissez-faire in such matters, so do let’s bin all that talk about paedophilia once and for all.
However, a marriage that got off to that kind of auspicious start probably has an element of domination to it. After all, before seducing Manny, Mme Auzière must have had many occasions to tell him to keep quiet in class (“Ferme-la, mon petit”) or even give him six of the best.
Admittedly, I don’t know if corporal punishment was as widespread in French schools as it was in British ones at the time. But if it was, this would put the current incident into a context of long standing.
Judging by the reaction in French social media, many people chose to put a political spin on the punch. According to them, Mme Macron was expressing her disagreement with her husband’s policies, in fact her revulsion with his whole tenure, a feeling widely shared across the nation.
Such people insist that the accompanying dialogue was rather different from the one I think I lip-read: “C’est pour la France, mon petit!” “Mais maman…” “Ferme-la!”
In any case, one chap wrote that Brigitte had done what all of France (toute la France) would have liked to do. I suppose there is always room for such partisanship but, inept though Manny undoubtedly is, Descartes is supposed to have postulated that “all knowledge comes from comparison between two or more things.”
It pains me to admit this, but compared to Sir Keir Starmer, Manny is an intellectual colossus and a statesman of no mean attainment. This, however, is a dubious compliment: the bar is set so low that there is no need to jump – one can simply step over it.
Some other commentators took Manny at his word and gave credence to his statement that the vicious punch was part of normal spousal horseplay. They even implied that it could have been part of an elaborate sex routine.
Now, though one wouldn’t put anything past the French, one has to doubt that the presidential couple would practise S&M in full view of several onlookers equipped with smartphone cameras. Anyway, I didn’t see my task today in reaching a definitive conclusion.
Rather I merely wanted to explore all the possibilities, leaving it for you to choose the likeliest one. I do wonder, however, if Lady Starmer has had any hand-to-hand combat training.
Iokaste as pugilist. Freud would have had a field day.