 |
| France's first Lady Brigitte Trogneux |
In short, she is the 64-year-old wife of Emmanuel Macron. They've been married since 2007.
She was once his high school teacher and she is 25 years his senior.
Yep. She used to be a French teacher at his private high school in Amiens, northern France. She also ran the theatre club where he was a budding actor. The picture above shows Macron's first "kiss" with Trogneux at the end of a theatre production.
It seems like it was love at first sight - it's understood the pair used to have long discussions together - and she would read his writing out to the class.
"She used to recite his work all the time. She was totally captivated by his writing skills," a former classmate told Le Parisien newspaper.
When he moved to Paris at the age of 18, she jumped ship from her own family soon after and followed him down.
She told Paris Match magazine: "At the age of 17, Emmanuel said to me, 'Whatever you do, I will marry you!'"
As for the age difference - a French study from September said that it's a trend right now for French women to take younger lovers, so who cares?
Well, actually, Macron's parents did. They asked the then 40-year-old Trogneux to stay away from their 16-year-old son, at least until he turned 18, according to a new biography about the presidential candidate.
She put her teaching career on hold to help Macron in his push to become president, and Macron counts her as a trusted adviser, at least according to Paris Match.
"She spends all her time beside him, she reads and listens to everything that is said about him. He asks her questions and takes her advice," the magazine wrote.
In her LBM (Life Before Macron), Trogneux was married with three children, who are now all grown up and work as an engineer, a cardiologist, and a lawyer. She even has six grandchildren.
Her parents were part of a renowned family of chocolatiers in Amiens, which has been in the family for five generations and has turned over as much as €4 million per year.
It's said that they have some of the best macarons going around.
The French have been quick to point out that they've had the macarons d'Amiens for generations - and now they have the Macron d'Amiens.
Trogneux and Macron are no strangers to the press. They first stepped out together for the cameras in the summer of 2015 for a dinner with the King of Spain and his wife.
This was back when Macron was the economy minister.
Since then, they've never been far from the pages of gossip magazines like Closer and Paris Match, perhaps most famously during a shoot last year where they were photobombed by a nudist on a beach.
She isn't really one to give interviews, but she has revealed a quick wit and a sharp tongue at times.
While being hounded by a reported in this interview, she was asked why her husband was "so good at politics".
Her response: "He is good at everything. Not just politics, you're being quite restrictive."
She then added: "I'm yet to find an area where he isn't good", much to the smirks of the team at Le Petit Journal.
The Local/ EU-Digest
No comments:
Post a Comment