Brigitte Macron has denied claims she slapped her husband in the face last year after reading text exchanges between him and French-Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, according to a report.
The first lady of France, 73, caused a stir in May last year when she appeared to push president Emmanuel Macron, 48, in front of cameras as they prepared to disembark a plane during a state visit to Vietnam.
At the time, her husband insisted they had only been joking, but a new book presented claims this week that Mrs Macron was enraged after seeing an alleged text exchange between Emmanuel and the actress Farahani.
Sources close to Mrs Macron told French newspaper Le Parisien: “Brigitte Macron categorically denied this account directly to the author on March 5, specifying that she never looks at her husband’s mobile phone.”
The Elysée Palace, which at the time dismissed the incident as “horseplay”, has not given an official response.
The author of the book, Florian Tardif, told RTL radio on Wednesday that sources close to the presidential couple had told him that Mr Macron maintained a “platonic relationship” with Ms Farahani for several months.
Mr Tardif, whose book Un Couple (Presque) Parfait (“An (Almost) Perfect Couple”) was released on Wednesday, said some of the correspondence with Ms Farahani, 42, “went quite far”, including one that allegedly read: “I find you very pretty”.
Someone close to the couple told Mr Tardif that Mrs Macron had read a “message that she was never meant to read”, which then prompted a “dispute [that was] longer and harsher than usual”.
The exchanges “led to tensions within the couple, which resulted in this private scene becoming public”, Mr Tardif claimed. He said the couple had quarrelled on the plane as they arrived in Vietnam, leading to the “slap”.
Ms Farahani has previously dismissed rumours of a relationship with Mr Macron, but has not publicly commented on the claims in the new book.
Speaking to Gala magazine last August, Ms Farahani quietly dismissed speculation, saying: “It comes in waves, it appears, disappears… I watch, I observe: what can I do? It doesn’t even bother me.”
She added: “The question is why people are interested in this kind of story. I think there’s a lack of love in some people, and they need to create such romances to fill that void.”
A unnamed source close to Mrs Macron also told Politico that she “has categorically denied” the claims.
Mrs Macron has faced a litany of attacks and conspiracy theories during her time as first lady of France.
Last month, she told French newspaper La Tribune Dimanche that the role had left her “sometimes sadder than I have ever been”, having exposed her to the “darkness of the world, the stupidity, the wickedness”.
Reflecting on how her life had been changed by public life, the former teacher admitted: “Sometimes I find it hard to see the blue sky. I have moments of pessimism that I didn’t have before.”
Earlier this year, 10 people were found guilty of cyber-bullying Mrs Macron after spreading false claims about her gender and sexuality, as well as making “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between her and her husband.
The Macrons have pursued a high-profile defamation lawsuit against American right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who promoted claims that she was born a man online.
Tom Clare, their lead counsel in the case, said last year that the couple had found the claims “extremely upsetting”. He noted Mrs Macron would have to “subject herself in a very public way” in order to “set the record straight”.
The Independent has contacted representatives for Ms Farahani and Mr and Mrs Macron.
