Video: ‘Not up to standard,’ Macron fires back at Trump’s personal jabs over Iran conflict
France’s President Emmanuel Macron
Abdullateef Fowewe
French President, Emmanuel Macron has replied US president Donald Trump on Wednesday, dismissing the U.S. president’s personal mockery as unworthy of response amid escalating tensions over the Iran conflict.
The exchange stemmed from Trump’s comments during a private lunch on April 1, where he criticised NATO allies’ hesitation to back the U.S. in the conflict and took direct aim at Macron.
Trump claimed Macron’s wife, Brigitte, “treats him extremely badly” and quipped that the French leader is “still recovering from the right to the jaw.”
The jab referenced a May 2025 video from Vietnam in which Brigitte appeared to shove Macron’s face.
When pressed by a reporter on Trump’s allusion to his marriage—“He even takes it directly to you with private allusions on your couple. What do you answer him? Is it an attack that you consider as against France?”
Macron refused to engage personally.
“Listen, I will not go back,” he replied.
“We talk about things too serious—we speak of war. Today we are talking about women and men who are in combat, women and men and civilians killed in the war taking place in this region. We also talk about consequences of this war on our economies,” he said.
Macron added, “His (Trump) remarks are neither elegant nor up to the standard.”
He emphasised higher priorities, “What must be done is act for de-escalation, to cease fire, for negotiation which alone can settle in depth what takes place within this region. That’s important: stability of all our partners and of us, and for the recovery also—a free circulation, the return to economic exchanges which we need, because today these are our compatriots; it is we who are victims of the consequences of this war.”
