DONALD Trump has teased Emmanuel Macron over the infamous slap he got from his wife Brigitte as he joked that the French President is “still recovering” from the blow.
The French leader has hit back, calling the remarks “neither elegant nor up to standard” and saying they “don’t deserve a response”.
It comes as the US President continues to lash out at his allies with verbal attacks – earlier this month he called Nato allies “cowards” for failing to come to his aid in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s comments came before his address last night in which he vowed to to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” , threatening to attack Tehran’s oil and energy supplies if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened.
Mocking his European ally, the US president referenced the viral video that showed Macron being shoved in the face by France’s First Lady Brigitte.
The clip shocked the world last year as Brigitte could be seen slapping her husband as he prepared to get off a plane in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Trump joked at an Easter lunch yesterday: “Then I call up France, Macron – whose wife treats him extremely badly – he’s still recovering from the hit right to the jaw.
“And I say: ‘Emmanuel, we’d love to have some help in the Gulf, even though we’re setting records in knocking out bad people and knocking out ballistic missiles, we’d love to have some help… could you please send ships immediately.’”
The US President put on a mock French accent to imitate Macron’s reply: “No, no, no, I cannot do that Donald, we can do that after the war is won.”
Macron told French TV on a visit to Seoul, South Korea today that the jibe from Trump was inappropriate given the seriousness of the situation in the Middle East.
He said: “We’re talking about very serious things: we’re talking about war, we’re talking today about the women and men who are fighting, the women and men and civilians who are killed in the war.
“We’re also talking about the consequences of this war on our economies. I think our American allies are experiencing the same thing – the price of oil and gas is increasing.
“And therefore the remarks you’re referencing, they are neither elegant nor up to standard.
“So I won’t respond, they don’t deserve a response. What we need to do is act to deescalate, for a ceasefire, for the resumption of negotiations – only that can truly solve this.”
It’s not the first time Trump has attempted a French accent in a comedy Macron impression – he also mimicked the French president with a cartoonish caricature in January.
Trump told reporters yesterday: “‘I said: ‘No, no, I don’t need them after the war is won, Emmanuel.’
“So I learned about Nato – Nato won’t be there if we ever have the big one, you know what I mean by the big one.”
He did not explain what “the big one” was.
Trump also claimed yesterday that the US is on the verge of leaving Nato after the alliance’s “terrible” show of support in the Middle East.
America’s withdrawal would spell disaster for Western security chiefs as they scramble to shore up their nations’ defences without the additional £3.8trillion of US military might.
Nato would lose nearly half of its tanks, three quarters of its military aircraft, 90 per cent of its nukes and a third of its troops if the US pulled out.
It would be among the “worst crises in the alliance’s history” and spark months of panic, experts have warned.
Peter Apps, a British Army reservist and writer on global defence, said: “This is possibly once again the worst crisis in Nato’s history.”
He noted that it would sit above several major issues the alliance has had to contend with from the Iraq war in 2003 to Trump’s threats to invade Greenland just this year.
“It’s a reminder that Nato is something you can’t take 100 per cent for granted,” he added.
Sir Keir Starmer has staunchly defended Nato as “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen” after Trump’s bombshell threat, adding that the UK would review its security ties with the EU.
But Trump has repeatedly blasted America’s allies for their inaction in the ongoing conflict, and claimed that – like Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin – he knows that Nato is a “paper tiger”.
On Tuesday, the US president hit out at jet-fuel-starved Britain for refusing to help in the “decapitation of Iran” – telling the UK to “get your own oil” from the Strait of Hormuz.
