Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped by a bystander across the face during a trip to Southeast France on Tuesday on the second stop of a nation-wide tour.

Broadcast on the BFM news channel and images on social media showed Macron approach a barrier to greet a man who instead of shaking hands slapped across the face.

🚨🇫🇷 | BREAKING: Macron slapped in the face

Via @ConflitsFrance pic.twitter.com/1L7eYTsvDR

— Politics For All (@PoliticsForAlI) June 8, 2021

According to the local officials source Macron’s bodyguards quickly intervened and two people were arrested afterwards. The incident took place in Tain-l’Hermitage village in the Drome region represents a serious security breach and overshadows the start of Macron’s tour which he said was designed to take the country’s pulse.

The regional prefecture in a statement said about the incident that the man who tried to slap the President and another individual are currently being questioned by the gendarmerie.

Around 1:15 pm, the President got back into his car after visiting a high school and came back out because onlookers were calling out to him, said the statement. He went to meet them and that’s where the incident happened, it added. Around a dozen stops had been planned over the next two months, with Macron keen to meet voters in person after more than a year of crisis management linked to the Covid – 19 pandemic.