President Emmanuel Macron came to greet a group of citizens and was slapped in the south of France: two arrested

A man slapped the French president, Emmanuel Macron, during a visit to the town of Tain-l’Hermitage, in south-eastern France. The government has confirmed the authenticity of the images circulating on social networks.

According to the video posted on Twitter, Macron approaches a group of people and talks to a man, who grabs his forearm and attacks him. Quickly, the security team intervened.

The president’s environment said it was a “slap in the face”. Two people were arrestedsaid the prefecture.

Macron and the assailant both wore masks. Subsequently, the president approached the citizens gathered in the square again and continued to speak with them, with no sign of having suffered a serious blow.

The incident overshadows the start of Macron’s tour, which he said was aimed at “taking the pulse of the country.” The centrist is expected to run for re-election in next year’s presidential election, and polls give him a slight lead over far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

“The man who tried to slap the president and another individual are being questioned by the gendarmerie,” the regional prefecture said in a statement.

“Around 13:15 (11:15 GMT), the president got back in his car after having visited an institute and left because onlookers called him,” added the authorities. “He went to meet them and that’s where the incident happened.”

A dozen shutdowns are planned over the next two months, with Macron looking forward to meeting voters in person after more than a year of dealing with the crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Called for caution

The president has arrived in the department of Drôme and commented on the lifting of certain restrictions due to the decrease in COVID-19 infections. “We are all happy to go back to the restaurants tomorrow, which the curfew passes at 11 o’clock in the evening, to rediscover the little pleasures of life. But if we lose vigilance, we run the risk of going backwards, he said.

The Head of State insisted on the fact that this reopening requires that it be done under “good conditions”.

Macron justified his call for caution by recalling the experience of the previous summer, when the epidemic was drastically reduced to give way to a very strong peak of infections in September.

(With information from AFP)