A new book has claimed that Brigitte Macron slapped her husband after seeing a text message on his phone from an infamous Iranian actress.
This incident happened after Mrs Macron aged 73, was filmed striking her husband and French President, Emmanuel Macron, 48 as the pair prepared to leave a plane in Vietnam last May, with the politician later dismissing the incident as "nothing" and insisted that he was just "bickering, or rather joking, with my wife".
He described the incident as "a moment when the president and his wife were relaxing one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh".
The book, An (Almost) Perfect Couple, was written by French journalist, Florian Tardif, and called this incident a classic "couple's scene", adding: "What happened is that she [Brigitte], saw a message from a wellknown figure. An Iranian actress: Golshifteh Farahani".
Tardif writes that Mr Macron had a "platonic" relationship with Farahani "for a few months", but had sent her "messages that went quite far', such as: 'I find you very pretty.' 'That's what I've been told by those close to him, and that's what I'm saying this morning".
Insisting that these messages have been "verified", Tardif alleged that these messages led to "tension", resulting in a "significant" argument between the pair while they were on the plane.
Macron added: "This private scene became public because there was a misunderstanding on the plane. We thought the argument was over. It wasn't".
Tardif also stated that the President regrets not being honesty about this row, "simply because they could have shown at that moment that they were a couple, a real couple, not a perfect couple".
Yesterday, Mrs Macron's representatives denied that this bust up was linked to the Iranian actress.
"Brigitte Macron categorically denied this account directly to the author on March 5, specifying that she never looks at her husband's mobile phone", they said, while adding that this detail was not published by the author.
Emmanuel Macron and teacher Brigitte when he was a student at her drama class.
Representatives for Ms Farahani did not comment on the matter at the time of writing.
At present, Golshifteh Farahani lives in exile after refusing to wear a hijab in international films.
In 2008, Ms Farahani starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the CIA thriller, Body Of Lies, directed by Ridley Scott, which saw her become the first actress based in Iran to star in a Hollywood film since the 1979 revolution.
She was later banned from working in Tehran by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance for not wearing a headscarf at its premiere in New York.
In 2011, she was also criticised by the regime after baring her breast in a short video to promote the Césars, aka the 'French Oscars'.
Recently, Ms Farahani shared her solidarity with her home country on social media, amid the anti-regime protests in Tehran in January, which saw tens of thousands people killed by the authorities.
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