French President Emmanuel Macron called for major democracies to build a new world order amid President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to blow up the United States’ alliances—and potshots at his marriage.
At an Easter event at the White House earlier this week, Trump implied that France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, gets physical with her husband, after an apparent incident in May 2025 when she appeared to hit him in the face as they arrived in Vietnam.
“I called up France, Macron, whose wife treats him extremely badly, and he’s still recovering from the right to the jaw,” he said, which garnered laughs from the Christian faithful audience.
When asked about the swipe at his marriage, Macron said he was “not going to respond,” adding that Trump’s insults “don’t merit a response.”
Instead he used a speech Friday to slam the U.S.’s “unpredictability” under Trump, and warned about the “dominance” of China as a result, as he urged other democracies to form a new alliance to stand up to the two superpowers.
“During decades, we had a so-called stability based on this international order and the few certainties we had, it’s up and down now,” he said to a group of university students while on a trip to South Korea.
“We should not just be passive in this new disorder. We have to build a new order,” he added.
“I think our objective is not to be the vessels of two hegemonic powers,” he said, in reference to China and the United States.
“What we experienced during the past few years is a sort of fragmentation of this cooperation. Some countries started to block some cooperations,” he continued.
In addition to European countries, Macron specifically named Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and India as other countries that could join this new order, noting they all share a common agenda on major issues, including democracy and international law.
His remarks come as Trump has been putting increased pressure on the United States’ European allies to give their full military might to fight his war in Iran, especially to help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has been trying and failing to get Macron to use France’s full military might to help the war effort. The president has been particularly irritated with France for blocking Israeli planes from flying weapons through its airspace.
He raged on on Truth Social that the French government was being “VERY UNHELPFUL” by not allowing U.S. planes “headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies,” to fly over the country.
“The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!” he signed off.
Trump has long appeared fascinated by the French president’s marriage to a woman 25 years his senior, while Melania Trump, who somewhat symmetrically is 24 years younger than the president, has become a close friend of the French first lady, having her appear on her recent Amazon documentary, Melania.
