French President Emmanuel Macron Shoved in the Face by His Wife

2:21 PM PT -- President Emmanuel Macron waved off the face shove his wife gave him earlier with a statement to reporters saying, "We are bickering and joking with my wife and a video becomes a sort of geoplanetary catastrophe," Macron says.

He continued ... "In the world we live in, we don't have a lot of time to lose ... This is all a bit of nonsense."

Those French have a temper ... even at the highest level, because the country Prez got smacked right in the noggin by his wife, and it's become something of a scandal.

Macron and his wife Brigitte were about to deplane Sunday after landing in Vietnam, and you see as plain as day, Macron taking a hard one to the face.

Brigitte isn't fully seen by the AP photog as her arms appear and she puts her hands on her hubby.

Macron appears rattled but quickly regains his composure and pivots with a wave to folks outside the aircraft.

Eventually, they both walk down the staircase and are welcomed by Vietnamese mucky mucks.

Now here's why it's a scandal ... Macron's peeps initially denied the incident went down, but later confirmed it. You know the adage ... "Who ya gonna believe? Me, or your lyin' eyes."

One Macron aide dismissed it as a harmless "squabble."

One French official spun it this way ... "It was a moment when the president and his wife were relaxing one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh," adding, "It was a moment of closeness."

BTW ... so was the Ali/Frazer fight.

And then there's another French official ... "It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around."

The couple has been hitched since 2007.