- Brigitte Macron is France's First Lady
- She is married to Emmanuel Macron
- She used to be his teacher!
Brigitte Macron, 68, has been the First Lady of France since 2017. It was back in 2007 that she married Emmanuel Macron, the future President of France. The two are separated by a nearly 25-year age difference. Here's a look at their unusual love story.
Brigitte Macron taught Emmanuel Macron
In 1986, Brigitte started working as a French and Latin secondary school teacher in Strasbourg. In 1991, she moved to Amiens with her now ex-husband and their three children. Fate then took its course in Amiens. She began teaching at the Jesuit high school Lycée la Providence and headed the theatre group, where she met the student Emmanuel Macron.
Emmanuel was 17 at the time, Brigitte 41: they worked together on the production of La Comédie du langage (The Comedy of Language). Years later, in an interview with Paris Match, she spoke about getting to know Emmanuel at the theatre: "I felt myself falter - and so did he."
"Writing brought us together every Friday and created an incredible closeness," said Brigitte in the interview with Paris Match. Still, a relationship was out of the question. Emmanuel switched to the elite Henri IV high school in Paris, but remained in contact with his teacher Brigitte.
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"We spent hours on the phone, hours and hours on the phone," Brigitte Macron told Paris Match. "When Emmanuel was 17, he said to me: whatever you do, I will marry you," she recalled.
In 2006, there was a happy ending for both of them: Brigitte filed for divorce from her husband and a year later she married Emmanuel. Happy years away from the public followed. It wasn't until Macron went into politics in 2012 that their unusual love story caught interest.
Today, the Macrons are more confident than ever. And have thus proven to all critics that their love is strong.
An interview with Elle shows that Brigitte Macron has a sense of humour about the age gap topic: "Emmanuel's only fault is his age. This is a joke between us. For us, the age difference has never played a role."
The next few weeks will show whether Brigitte Macron will remain France's first lady. The run-off election between incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and his opponent Marine Le Pen is scheduled for April 24.
