Brigitte Macron was startled by her “godson” at his naming ceremony on Monday.
The French First Lady was the guest of honour the ceremony for the first panda born in France.
She was getting a closer look at the four-month-old baby panda when it seemed to take objection.
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In the video, Macron’s colleague stuck his hand in the panda’s glass enclosure when it lunged and barked at him.
Macron then put her hand at the side of the cage and the panda tried to attack it through the glass.
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A short time later, the panda barked and lunged at Macron, causing the French first lady to jump away from the baby bear’s enclosure.
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The scene occurred at an event as she visited the Beauval zoo to announce the panda’s name.
She announced the name as Yuan Meng, which was chosen by Chinese officials and means “dream come true.”
The cub lost his twin sibling barely two hours after their August births, which were firsts in France.
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The arrival of the panda parents in France back in 2012 was billed in official circles as a sign of warming bilateral ties.
Mother Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi are due to return to China in 2022 while the young panda is expected to stay in France until the age of two or three.
The cub, weighing in at 142.4 grams at birth, opened his eyes for the first time in mid-September and weighed 7.903 kilos as of Dec. 4, the Beauval zoo said on its website.
* With files from Reuters
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