Emmanuel Macron's ‘flirty’ text to actress Golshifteh Farahani allegedly irked wife Brigitte: What did he write?

A new book by French journalist Florian Tardif has reignited one of Europe's most talked-about political scandals. Tardif, a journalist with Paris Match, claims French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped by his wife Brigitte during a foreign trip last year.

The incident was caught on camera as the couple prepared to disembark their plane in Hanoi, Vietnam, in May last year.

Brigitte, 73, allegedly read a message from Iranian-born actress Golshifteh Farahani. The First Lady allegedly found a message to the 42-year-old actress on her husband's device moments before the incident.

Farahani, a former student of Macron, is a well-known critic of the Tehran regime. According to Tardif, Macron told Farahani in one message: "I find you very pretty."

The journalist claims the two maintained a "platonic relationship" for several months.

An extract from the book, serialised in Paris Match, describes the emotional impact on Brigitte.

"What hurt Brigitte was not so much the contents of the message as what it hinted at: a possibility … nothing tangible or that could really be denounced but the idea alone … was enough,” the New York Post quoted the extract as reading.

A friend of the French First Lady is quoted as saying: "She saw herself being erased."

The claims made in the book remain unverified.

Golshifteh Farahani's most celebrated film is About Elly (2009), directed by Academy Award winner Asghar Farhadi. Her bigger commercial successes in Hollywood include Extraction (2020) and Extraction 2 (2023), Body of Lies (2008) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017).

"Brigitte Macron categorically denied this account directly to the author on March 5th, specifying that she never looks at her husband’s mobile phone," a representative told Le Parisien.

Farahani has also repeatedly denied any romantic involvement with Macron.

“I think that there is a lack of love for some people and they need to create romances like this to fill [the void],” she told Le Point in March.

"t was a moment when the president and his wife were unwinding one last time before the start of the trip by joking around," a close associate said.

Between 2012 and 2014, Farahani was in a publicised relationship with French actor and filmmaker Louis Garrel. French celebrity tabloids closely tracked the couple during this period. They collaborated on screen in the 2015 French drama Two Friends, which Garrel also directed.

Farahani's first marriage was to French-Iranian architect and film producer Amin Mahdavi. They married in 2003 and separated in 2011 after she established her life in Paris, following permanent exile from Iran.

In 2015, she married Australian psychologist Christos Dorje Walker, a former Buddhist monk. The couple relocated to Ibiza to avoid media attention. They divorced in 2017.