French President Emmanuel Macron has become the latest world leader to experience public humiliation, reminiscent of similar incidents involving other political figures. While greeting crowds gathered to meet him in the Drôme region of southeastern France, Macron was slapped in the face by a young man. A video clip broadcasted by BFM TV, which circulated widely on Twitter, showed a man wearing a green shirt, glasses, and a mask shouting "Down with Macronism" before delivering a strong slap to Macron's face.
Macron is not the only president to face such embarrassing moments before the media; others have preceded him, with their videos shared broadly. Notably, former U.S. President George Bush was famously thrown a shoe by an Iraqi journalist during a press conference in Baghdad in 2008.
In 2015, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was assaulted in parliament when an MP violently carried him away from the podium. Last January, former Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipilä was punched by an unknown assailant and verbally abused near the parliament.
Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl also encountered violent situations; during a visit to Halle in eastern Germany in 1991, protesters pelted him with eggs, claiming he had not transformed their regions into prosperous lands as promised.
In 2009, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was attacked by a man wielding a metal object, resulting in a broken nose, damaged teeth, and facial injuries.
In France, former President Nicolas Sarkozy was also attacked by hundreds of protesters who threw eggs at him in the southwestern city of Bayonne, forcing him to seek refuge inside a café under the protection of riot police.
