It has been a week Emmanuel Macron would rather forget. As the French president attempted a high-profile diplomatic reset on the African continent, a new book back in Paris was reigniting explosive personal rumours — linking him to Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, and to a viral moment in which the First Lady appeared to slap him on a presidential plane. Together, the two controversies have handed his critics — at home and abroad — fresh ammunition against a presidency already struggling to stay afloat.
The Incident That Shocked a Continent
On May 11, 2026, at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, Macron rose uninvited from his front-row seat, walked onto the stage during a youth-focused panel on culture and innovation, and seized the microphone to publicly scold the audience for noise and side conversations. (Fox News, ABC News)
"Excuse me, everybody. Hey, hey, hey," Macron told the crowd. "I'm sorry, guys. But it's impossible to speak about culture... with such a noise. So this is a total lack of respect." (Fox News)
The video spread instantly across social media, triggering a firestorm of criticism. "Africans don't need Emmanuel Macron's permission to speak in Africa," wrote Dr. Miguna Miguna, a Kenyan-Canadian lawyer with over three million followers on X. Former Zimbabwean MP Fadzayi Mahere wrote: "Respectfully, I don't believe it's courteous or appropriate for you to come onto our continent and talk down at people like this. They are not your kids." (Fox News)
Thierno Mbaye, a history student in Dakar, told the Associated Press: "He acted like a schoolteacher scolding children." (ABC News)
Backlash at Home Too
The outrage was not limited to Africa. Danièle Obono, a lawmaker for the hard-left France Unbowed party, said on X: "It's stronger than him — as soon as he sets foot on the African continent, he can't help but behave like a colonizer." (ABC News)
The incident also compounded an earlier controversy from the same trip: Macron had declared at a press conference alongside Kenyan President William Ruto that France was among "the true Pan-Africanists." Pan-Africanism is a philosophy historically rooted in resistance to European colonialism. Togolese human rights activist Farida Nabourema responded with an open letter: "Pan-Africanism is not a brand, Mr. Macron, neither is it a diplomatic posture. It is a political philosophy that said no to everything France spent three centuries saying yes to." (ABC News)
A Trip Designed to Turn the Page
The summit was no accident of timing. France has watched its influence in West Africa collapse in recent years, following the expulsion of its troops from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and later Senegal and Chad. (Caliber.az) Macron's government designed the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi — significantly, an Anglophone country — to signal a break from the past and reposition France as a "partner of equals." (Christian Science Monitor)
Macron announced a $27 billion investment package spanning energy, artificial intelligence, and agriculture. (ABC News) Summit organisers promoted the gathering as a cooperative forum that bypassed the toxic legacy of Françafrique — France's post-colonial system of political, economic, and military domination — but analysts say the viral outburst undermined that messaging in seconds. (African Elements, Christian Science Monitor)
The Book That Set Paris Alight
While Macron was navigating the fallout in Nairobi, a new political biography was causing an entirely different kind of storm back in France. Published on May 13, Un Couple (Presque) Parfait ("An Almost Perfect Couple") by Paris Match journalist Florian Tardif made explosive claims about the president's private life. (Euronews, Primetimer)
At the heart of the book is a months-long text exchange that Macron allegedly maintained with Golshifteh Farahani, one of Iran's most celebrated actresses, who has lived in exile in France since 2008. Tardif describes the relationship as "platonic," but claims the messages went "quite far" — including one in which Macron allegedly wrote: "I find you very pretty." (Euronews)
The book links those messages to a viral moment already circulating online: footage from May 2025 showing Brigitte Macron apparently slapping her husband as they disembarked from a presidential plane at Hanoi's Noi Bai Airport during an official state visit to Vietnam. According to Tardif, the First Lady had seen a message she was never meant to read. (Primetimer)
Both Farahani and the Macron entourage have flatly denied the allegations. Farahani dismissed the rumours: "It comes in waves, it appears, disappears... I watch, I observe: what can I do? It doesn't even get on my nerves." She added that she had spent many months in Vancouver and then in the Amazon, far from Paris and any supposed proximity to the president. (Euronews)
Who Is Golshifteh Farahani?
For many outside France, the scandal has introduced them to a remarkable figure. Born in Tehran in 1983, Farahani became a star of Iranian cinema as a teenager before breaking internationally with Body of Lies alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. She settled in France and built a career spanning arthouse drama, Hollywood blockbusters (Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge, Extraction, Extraction 2) and prestige television (Apple TV+'s Invasion). (Latin Times)
She was exiled from Iran in 2008 after refusing to wear a hijab at an international film premiere — a defiant act that cost her career in her homeland but made her a symbol of resistance for Iranian women. (Euronews, Latin Times) At the 51st César Film Awards in Paris in February 2026, she was celebrated in the winners' room. (Primetimer)
A Presidency Already Under Pressure
Both controversies land at a particularly difficult moment for Macron domestically. His approval ratings have been in freefall for months, weighed down by a pension reform that triggered massive street protests, a political crisis involving repeated changes of prime ministers, and public frustration over rising inflation and a national debt exceeding €3.4 trillion. (Caliber.az)
An Elabe poll for Les Echos placed his trust rating at just 14% — equalling the historic low of his predecessor François Hollande — with 82% of French respondents saying they do not trust Macron, and 59% expressing total distrust. (France in English) A January 2026 Ifop survey showed a modest recovery to 23%, though analysts described it as fragile. (Ifop)
Does This Threaten His Position?
Macron cannot be removed by a vote of no confidence — France's Fifth Republic grants the president exceptional constitutional stability. His term runs until 2027, and the constitution bars him from seeking another mandate. (Euronews)
However, the political costs are real. His weakened standing has made it harder to push legislation through a fragmented National Assembly, and his government's survival has depended on navigating multiple no-confidence motions. The twin scandals add to a long list of controversies that opposition parties — from Marine Le Pen's National Rally to Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Unbowed — are eager to exploit.
What Comes Next?
The Élysée Palace has sought to manage the fallout on both fronts quietly. An Ipsos survey ahead of the Africa summit found 74% of respondents across nine African countries held a positive image of France. (ABC News) On the personal front, denials from both Farahani and Brigitte Macron's camp have been swift — but in an era of viral media, denials rarely close the story. (Euronews)
The images that travelled around the world this week were not those of a statesman in command — they were of a president scolding Africans on their own continent, and of a leader whose private life has become tabloid fodder at the worst possible moment.
With the 2027 presidential election approaching and France's political landscape deeply fractured, Macron's authority will depend less on any single scandal and more on whether he can restore a sense of direction to a presidency that many French people already feel has run its course.
All claims in this article are sourced and linked inline. Primary sources: Washington Post, ABC News, Fox News, Christian Science Monitor, Euronews, Primetimer, Latin Times, Ifop, France in English, Caliber.az
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