Donald Trump-Emmanuel Macron tussle in new 25-second handshake duel

Paris: Their handshakes are becoming a talking point of every encounter and US president Donald Trump and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron didn’t disappoint on Friday. [caption id=“attachment_3814947” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] France president Emmanuel Macron with US president Donald Trump in their 25-second handshake. AP[/caption] In their first meeting at a NATO summit in May, 39-year-old Macron crunched Trump’s knuckles in a show of power he said was deliberate to underline how he wouldn’t be intimidated in their talks.

At a G20 summit last weekend, the two had another energetic tug-of-war, while their talks in Paris today finished with a 25-second powergrip in which neither man looked like they wanted to let go. Bidding goodbye to each other on the Champs-Elysees after two days of talks in Paris, Trump appeared to get the better of Macron in the early stages of the handshake when he briefly pulled the French president off balance. It ended with both men stood face-to-face looking like they were having an armwrestle nearly half a minute later. Trump even kissed goodbye to Macron’s wife Brigitte without letting go of her husband. During the US president’s two-day trip to Paris, he and Macron have seemed at ease in each other’s company and on good terms, with Trump saying that the bond between them was “unbreakable” and Macron referring to his counterpart as a “friend”. (AFP) RB 07142158 NNNN