PARIS — They were just playfighting.

That was French President Emmanuel Macron’s explanation Monday for video images that showed his wife, Brigitte, pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before they disembarked from their plane to start a tour of Southeast Asia this weekend.

The moment quickly made headlines in France, with media trying to decipher the interaction that cameras spotted through the just-opened door of the plane.

Macron later told reporters that the couple — married since 2007 after meeting at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher — were simply joking around.

“We are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife,” he said, adding that the incident was being overblown into “a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe.”

The French leader argued that the images and reaction to them offered a cautionary tale about disinformation in the social media age, noting that in recent weeks, other videos had been used to circulate made-up stories about him.

“Everyone needs to calm down,” he said.

— The Associated Press