President Macron is SLAPPED in the face during walkabout in France

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Emmanuel Macron was slapped across the face during a walkabout to greet voters in France today.

The assailant took the French President by the arm, appearing to stop him for a chat, before shouting: ‘Down with Macronia’ (‘A Bas La Macronie’) as he struck his face.

Bodyguards quickly seized upon the man and bundled him to the ground before dragging him away, as a member of Macron’s security detail pulled the president to safety.

A few seconds later Macron returned to the barriers to get a word in, although it was unclear what he was saying. He then continued to shake people’s hands while a bodyguard stood between him and the crowd. 

Two men were arrested following the incident outside a culinary school in the village of Tain-l’Hermitage in the Drome region where Macron had been meeting students to discuss how life is returning to normal after the Covid restrictions were eased.

The attack represents a serious security breach and overshadows the start of Macron’s ‘Tour de France’ which he said was designed to ‘take the pulse of the nation.’

‘Around 1.15pm, the president got back into his car after visiting a high school and came back out because onlookers were calling out to him,’ the regional prefecture said in a statement.

‘He went to meet them and that’s where the incident happened.’ 

No motive was given but a police spokesman said that one of the men arrested ‘described himself as an anarchist.’

Some of Macron’s fiercest political rivals swiftly came to his defence, including Marine Le Pen who called the violence ‘intolerable.’

Le Pen, who is hoping to topple the 43-year-old in next year’s election, told a press conference: ‘It is inadmissible to physically attack the President of the Republic. I am the first opponent of Emmanuel Macron, but he is the president. We can fight him politically, but we cannot allow the slightest violence towards him.’ 

Jean-Luc Melenchon, of the left-wing La France Insoumise group, tweeted: ‘I stand in solidarity with the President.’

Just a few minutes after the incident, Macron’s ally, Prime Minister Jean Castex, took the floor of the National Assembly where he warned of attacks on ‘the foundations of democracy.’

Former President Francois Hollande tweeted: ‘To attack the President of the Republic is to deal an unbearable and intolerable blow to our institutions. Faced with this unspeakable gesture, the whole Nation must show solidarity with the Head of State. In these circumstances, I address all my support to Emmanuel Macron.’

In video circulating on social media, Macron, dressed in shirt sleeves, could be seen walking towards a crowd of well-wishers who were behind a metal barrier outside the culinary school.

The French president reached out his hand to greet one man, in a green T-Shirt, with glasses and a face mask. 

‘Mr Macron appeared very relaxed and thought he was getting a good reception from those watching him,’ said an eye-witness.

‘He was outside a catering school when he stuck his right hand towards a man who promptly grabbed it. Then the man slapped the President in the face, before Mr Macron was pulled away by security guards.’ 

Two of Macron’s security detail tackled the man in the green T-shirt, while another ushered Macron away.

But Macron remained in the vicinity of the crowd for a few more seconds, and appeared to return to the barriers to get a word in, although it was unclear what he was saying. 

A local police spokesman confirmed that two men had been arrested at the scene of the attack.

‘One is thought to have described himself as an anarchist, but an enquiry is ongoing’ said the spokesman.

The presidential administration said there had been an attempt to strike Macron, but declined further comment. 

Around a dozen stops had been planned over the next two months, with Macron keen to meet voters in person after more than a year of crisis management linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shortly before being slapped, Macron had been asked to comment on recent remarks from far-left leader Melenchon who suggested at the weekend that next year’s election would be manipulated.

‘Democratic life needs calm and respect, from everyone, politicians as well as citizens,’ Macron said.

‘In a democracy, opponents can express themselves freely, on the street, in the press, on television, and through the ballot box. 

‘The benefit of all this is that it puts an end to violent and hatred. If hatred and violence come back they weaken one thing, and that is democracy, and that’s why I’m urging everybody to respect each other and remain calm’. 

In July last year, Macron and his wife Brigitte were verbally abused by a group of protesters while taking an impromptu walk through the Tuileries gardens in central Paris. 

Macron has undertaken several other tours since his 2017 electoral triumph over the traditional parties of government on the left and right.

A 2018 trip to mark the centenary of the end of World War I is best remembered for the scenes of furious citizens booing and heckling France’s youngest post-war leader.

It took place just as Yellow Vest ‘ protests were gathering momentum to denounce the government’s policies and the head of state personally for his leadership style, which was criticised as aloof and arrogant.

Macron conducted another tour billed as a listening exercise in 2019 in the aftermath of those protests, which shook the country and saw him promise to change his way of governing. 

The president also faced massive protests across the Muslim world last year after he said that France would never renounce its laws on caricatures following the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who showed Charlie Hebdo cartoons to a class. 

The Royalist slogan ‘Montjoie Saint Denis!’ was also heard during Tuesday’s attack.

The ‘Montjoie Saint Denis’ was the banner of Charlemagne, the King of the Franks in the 8th Century, and it was kept in the Basilica of Saint Denis, which exists to this day.

Today’s swearing was reminiscent of the kind used in 2008 by the then conservative President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, when he was attacked at a farming fair in Paris.

A video clip showed a man refusing to shake Mr Sarkozy’s hand, and shouting: ‘Oh no, don’t touch me, you’ll dirty me.’

Mr Sarkozy snapped back: ‘Get lost a*******, just get lost’. Mr Sarkozy later said that he regretted using such unpresidential language.

Mr Macron is in his fourth year of office, and is hoping to be re-elected for a second five year term next year.

His main opponent at the moment is Marine Le Pen, the far-Right leader of the Rassemblement National (National Rally) party.

In November 2018 six activists linked to the far Right were arrested in connection with a ‘violent plot’ against Mr Macron.

The six were picked up by anti-terrorism units in the eastern French regions of Moselle and Isère.

And in July 2017, a 23-year-old far-Right extremist was charged with plotting to assassinate Mr Macron at France’s Bastille Day military parade, which the French leader attended with the US president, Donald Trump.

The suspected said he wanted to kill Macron at the 14 July national day parade in Paris, along with ‘Muslims, Jews, blacks and homosexuals’.

Three kitchen knives were found in his car and analysis of his computer found that he had conducted web searches as part of his plot.  

It is not the first time that Mr Macron has been attacked by angry crowd members while out in public.

In 2016 – before he became President a year later – Mr Macron was pelted with eggs by Communist Party members outside a post office in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. 

Macron is currently on a ‘Tour de France’ to ‘take the pulse of the country,’ according to the Elysee Palace.

His opponents see it as a campaigning effort two weeks out from regional elections and less than a year from the presidential election. 

Macron’s popularity has taken a massive hit throughout the pandemic, a recent poll by Le Monde showing 43 per cent support for Macron’s closest rival Le Pen, compared to 57 per cent for the president.

Public dissatisfaction has been compounded by his bungled vaccine programme, that has seen him brazenly claiming the AstraZeneca jab is only ‘quasi-effective’ and leading a shambolic EU offensive to try and lay the blame at Britain’s door.

The voters disdain for the EU has increased, leaving Macron more isolated as Le Pen gains ground. 

Two polls carried out in April by IFOP (the independent French Institute of Public Opinion) showed that only 35 per cent of voters trusted the government’s actions during the pandemic, while only 45 per cent saw Macron as suitable for presidential office.

Impatience with the president has been fuelled not just by the glacial vaccine roll-out but also by his apparent contradictions of scientific advice, with rivals referring to him as a ‘Napoleon’ and accusing the president of believing that he is an epidemiologist.

Adding to his woes, voting intentions for Le Pen’s party have not been this positive since her father Jean-Marie Le Pen’s campaign in 2002, when he reached the second round of the presidential election.

The right-wing party is ranking ahead of any other party in France among the 25-34 age group, who have faced unemployment and soaring costs of student loans.

Many of the younger age groups had already turned against Macron in the Yellow Vest protests of 2018, the pandemic only hardening their positions.