‘I find you very pretty’: French president was slapped by wife for flirting with Iranian actress, book claims

A new book by French journalist Florian Tardif has claimed that the slap French First Lady Brigitte Macron gave her husband Emmanuel Macron during a foreign trip last year was linked to flirtatious messages he had exchanged with Iranian-born actress Golshifteh Farahani.

Tardif, a journalist with French Magazine Paris Match, made the claims in an interview with Radio Télévision Luxembourg (RTL) France to promote his book ‘An (Almost) Perfect Couple’, published Wednesday.

The journalist claimed Brigitte, 73, saw a message from the president to the 42-year-old actress that read, “I find you very pretty”.

While French newspaper Le Parisien described the relationship between the president and Farahani as “platonic” and spanning several months, the book suggests the digital exchange led to a “private scene becoming public”.

Excerpts from the book, serialised in Paris Match, indicate the first lady was less concerned with the specific wording of the texts and more by their implications. “What hurt Brigitte was not so much the contents of the message as what it hinted at: a possibility.”

While a friend of the French first lady was also quoted as saying she felt she was “being erased”, official representatives for Brigitte Macron have dismissed the report as fabricated.

They told Le Parisien that the first lady “categorically denied this account” to the author in March, adding that she “never looks at her husband’s mobile phone”.

Farahani has also pushed back against the rumors of an affair, which have circulated since last year.

In a March interview with French magazine Le Point, she suggested the stories were born out of a “lack of love” from those who “need to create romances like this to fill the void”.

When footage of the slap first went viral last year, Emmanuel’s team initially suggested the video might be AI-generated.

They later characterised the interaction as a joke between the couple.

Addressing the footage at the time, President Macron had told the public to “calm down” and insisted the couple were merely “joking around” before their diplomatic duties began.