Posts about Trump-Macron handshake misuse unrelated image
- Published on November 4, 2025 at 10:09
- 2 min read
- By Anne CHAN, AFP Hong Kong
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Muscular handshakes between US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, where neither man appears willing to show a hint of weakness, have frequently drawn global attention. After the pair met in Egypt in October 2025, online posts shared an image they falsely claimed depicted Macron's hand drained of colour from Trump's strong grip. The picture is from an unrelated event and features the hand of Britain's Prince William.
The image of the reddened hand, added to a photo of Macron and Trump during a lightning summit in Egypt meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza, was shared on Threads on October 16, 2025 (archived link).
"Trump's grip left a deep red mark on the hand of French President Macron," reads the traditional Chinese text overlaid on the collage.
Similar Chinese-language posts surfaced elsewhere on Threads, as well as on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Hong Kong's online forum HKGolden, and X. The claim, earlier debunked by the Factcheck Lab news organisation, also spread in English (archived link).
Macron and Trump's handshakes have garnered wide coverage for the way they use body language as power play (archived link).
Since they first met, Macron has appeared keen to resist Trump's habit of using overbearing handshakes to put other world leaders -- both literally and figuratively -- off-balance.
A handshake that lasted nearly 30 seconds made headlines in 2017, while photos went viral the following year showing how Macron turned part of Trump's hand pale with a blood-squeezing grip (archived here and here).
An AFP video shows Trump and Macron sharing a long handshake in Egypt during the recent peace summit, but no white finger marks are visible on Macron's hand immediately afterward (archived link).
A reverse search on Google found the image of the hand shared in the circulating posts was taken from an old picture published by the European Pressphoto Agency (archived link).
The full photo reveals the hand does not belong to Macron but to Britain's Prince William.
"A strong handshake by Indian prime minister Nanrendra (sic) Modi (C) leave a impression at the Britain's Prince William's hand prior to a meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India 12 April 2016," reads the caption.
"Prince William and his wife Catherine are on a visit to India and Bhutan from 10 to 16 April."
AFP has fact-checked more misinformation related to Trump and Macron.
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