Following U.S. first lady Melania Trump's surprise statement denying any relationship to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on April 9, 2026, social media users claimed French President Emmanuel Macron mocked her by sharing an allegedly authentic image of Epstein kissing her.
A video with the still image and associated claim spread on X and Facebook (screenshot).
A Snopes search of Macron's verified public social media determined that the French president did not share the above image, which French fact-checkers also reported when the image first began circulating in early April. A Google search returned no relevant results from reputable news outlets, which would have certainly reported on such an incident if it were true.
Furthermore, the image originated from a February 5 post by a political satire Facebook account under the name Tom Adelsbach. Adelsbach labeled the post as "digitally altered" and "parody," reportedly after Spanish-speaking social media users circulated it as authentic.
As such, we have rated this claim as false.
We reached out to Adelsbach for more information and will update the story if we hear back.
Origin of claim
Many of the more popular posts shared online included a recording of a TikTok video, which cited, in Spanish, "journalist Nabil Omran" as the apparent source for the claim about Macron posting the image. (The original TikTok video no longer appears to be available.)
(X user @p4purrip0p)
A Facebook account that appeared to be Omran's did, in fact, post (screenshot) the image on Facebook on April 3 with a laughing emoji and a caption, written in Arabic, that said, "Avenging His Dignity… #Macron Posts Photo of #Trump's Wife with Her Lover" (translated to English using Google Translate).
It was not clear whether Omran was joking, but this appears to refer to Trump mocking Macron on April 1 by saying, "Macron — whose wife treats him extremely badly… he's still recovering from the right to the jaw."
Macron's wife, Brigitte Macron, was filmed months earlier apparently shoving the French president in the face. Macron said Trump's comments were "neither elegant nor up to standard," and that they did not "merit a response."
We
Image is fake, originated as satire
This section of the story includes images that may be upsetting.
A reverse-image search determined that the original version of the image included a watermark that said "TOM.ADELSBACH," thus tying it to the original creator of the image and self-identified "obsessive memeist."
Adelsbach's account posts numerous AI-generated political memes and acknowledges his use of AI on a page that allows supporters to tip him. He also took credit for the image in an April 10 social media post under his X handle, @PaulleyTicks, in connection to the claim circulating about Macron posting his meme.
In the original meme Adelsbach posted, the bottom-right corner has a serial number similar to those used by the U.S. Department of Justice to categorize Epstein files released to the public. The serial number, EFTA01648120, does not appear in initial searches of the DOJ files.
However, additional searches determined that an image under EFTA01648120 did exist on Page 51 of file EFTA01648070.pdf (PDF). In that image, Epstein is puckering his lips while grabbing someone whose face is redacted. As such, it appears that Adelsbach manipulated this authentic image released by the DOJ.
(U.S. Department of Justice/Facebook user Tom Adelsbach)
"Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been circulating on social media for years now," the first lady said in her public address. "Be cautious about what you believe. These images and stories are completely false."