The new president of France was warned about US President Donald Trump’s aggressive hand-shaking before their meeting on Thursday, according to The Washington Post.
At a gathering in Washington, DC, the French ambassador to the US told the Post’s Jonathan Capehart that he had advised French President Emmanuel Macron in a memo how to react to Trump when they met at the NATO summit on Thursday.
While the French ambassador, Gerard Araud, did not reveal what he told Macron, Capehart and another guest jokingly told him that he should discuss Trump’s handshake with Macron.
At the Thursday summit, Trump shook Macron’s hand intensely – and it prompted major social media scrutiny. The two world leaders’ knuckles went white during the handshake, according to observers, and Trump seemed to want to disengage first.
When Capehart met with Araud again after the summit, he asked the ambassador whether Macron had been warned.
"Yes!" Araud replied, imitating Trump's tight handshake grip.