The interview given by Brigitte Macron to Paris Match Last week caused a lot of discussion. And it is not for having given a literature course on the campus of the Live association in Clichy-sous-Bois that the foreign editorialists are in PLS, but rather for his confidences on the beginnings of his relationship with Emmanuel Macron.
In France, it seems that everyone has accepted without flinching, but not without mockery, the differences within the presidential couple. And if, in France, it is above all the age of the first lady which is commented on (and judged), notably on her physical appearance at 70, outside our borders, the age in question is above all that which she and her husband had when they began their relationship. It all started from everyday British life The Telegraph who relayed this interview of Paris Match by heading to a sentence from Brigitte Macron: “I thought that at 15 Emmanuel would fall in love with someone his age. » And in the subtitle, another extract which is lent to him: “It was a mess in my head when he was transferred to a different school. »
The importance of translation
Except that Brigitte Macron didn’t exactly say that. In the pages of the magazine, she says: “It was a mess in my head. At the time of my father’s death, I was caught in an internal hurricane. For me, a boy so young, it was prohibitive. Emmanuel had to go to Paris. I told myself he was going to fall in love with someone his age. That didn’t happen. » A little translation shortcut that gave rise to a plethora of articles.
The conservative daily Times title: “I waited ten years to marry Emmanuel Macron. » Most left Guardian gives the floor to Joe Gibson, pseudonym of the author of the book Seventeen: A Coming of Age Story, which tells the story of the relationship between a 17-year-old teenager and his 35-year-old teacher. In his editorial, the writer draws a parallel between the story of Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron and his own, which he describes as “an abuse of power”, considering himself a “victim of such a relationship”. As for the tabloids, the New York Post takes up the title of Telegraph and recalls the French legislation on the age of consent which has been 15 years since 2018, linking this information to a previous article in which the publication qualified the story of the couple’s “sordid past”. The same is true of Fox News which reproduces the same article (both media are owned by Rupert Murdoch via his company News Corp). THE Daily Mail is, for once, the least trashy, explaining that Brigitte Macron preferred to “delay her marriage to Emmanuel so as not to destabilize the lives of her children”, without depriving herself of insisting on the age of the eldest son of the former professor who is “three years older” than her current husband.
One thing is certain, the reputation of the French for the supposed lightness of their morals still has a bright future ahead of it. A reputation regularly nourished by French political life which does not seem shaken by the various scandals in the private sphere, such as the accusations of rape against Gérald Darmanin which were very popular outside our borders, or more recently the Joël Guerriau affair which also causes astonishment, in the United Kingdom as in the United States.