Presidential election in France
Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron: The teacher and her master student
The French are initially amazed by the marriage of Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte. In the meantime, they have gotten used to the couple
© Christophe Ena/AP/DPA
French President Emmanuel Macron is said to have promised his teacher when he was 17 that he would marry her. In 2007 the time had actually come, ten years later both moved into the Élysée Palace. The story of an unusual love.
This made headlines five years ago, but the French and the rest of the world have since gotten used to it: French President Emmanuel Macron is married to a woman who is 25 years his senior.
What interested most even more than the age difference between the two: Emmanuel Macron met his future wife as a high school student in his northern French hometown of Amiens: Brigitte Macron, née Trogneux, was his teacher at the time. No wonder that the gossip press was enthusiastic about the team right from the start.
The French marveled at Brigitte Macron
Brigitte Macron became known to the wider French public when she accompanied her husband to a reception at the Presidential Palace in 2015. The French were amazed at the marriage of the then economics minister to a woman whose children are his age and who is already a grandmother of several people.
But the politician’s wife, nicknamed “Bibi”, is by no means grandmotherly: the blond, slim and tanned woman in her late sixties with the broad smile is known for her chic and body-hugging wardrobe. But nobody should be blinded by this: reducing Brigitte Macron to her appearance would be a big mistake. This was already evident in the 2017 election campaign, where she was omnipresent as an advisor to her husband. Madame Macron prepared his performances and fine-tuned his speeches. Sometimes it seemed as if she were still his teacher – as once at the Jesuit high school La Providence in Amiens, where the two met.
Macron was 15 at the time and was attending a theater course taught by the French teacher, who is married and has three children. In the following school year, they both work together to revise a play for a performance. “Writing brought us together every Friday and created an incredible closeness,” Brigitte Macron later describes the beginnings of the relationship in “Paris Match”. “I felt myself falter and so did he.”
Emmanuel Macron: Promises to marry at 17
Of course, such a relationship seems unthinkable. Coming from a respected family of chocolatiers, the teacher convinces her student in love to leave Amiens and go to the elite Henri IV high school in Paris. But both remain in close contact. At the age of 17, Macron is said to have promised: “No matter what you do, I will marry you.”
In 2007, the time had actually come: Macron, now an employee of the prestigious financial inspection agency, married Brigitte, who was divorced from her first husband. In the following years, she accompanies the steep career of her husband, who made it from economic advisor to President François Hollande to Minister of Economic Affairs and in 2017 to France’s youngest President. And now, five years later, is facing re-election.
Macron, the family man
Some people dislike how much the politician’s wife is in the limelight. But the image of the family man is important to Macron. In addition, the unusual relationship strengthens his aura as a man who doesn’t care about conventions.
That has remained the case to this day. On their successful path together, the couple has also left many a saying of the past behind: Brigitte Macron is said to have jokingly told friends in 2017 that her husband absolutely had to win this presidential election – for the next five years it would be too late because of her age: “Emmanuel has to do it now. Just imagine what I will look like in 2022.”
As it turns out, she might be wrong on that point. Brigitte Macron still makes a great premiere dame. According to the polls, she won’t have to move for the next five years. They seem to have shown it all again – the teacher and her protégé.