I know they’re French, but Macron’s love story is weird
The relationship between emmanuel Macron, hotly tipped to become France’s next President on Sunday, and his wife Brigitte is an intriguing one, even by French standards.
The pair, who have been married for ten years, met when he was a schoolboy of 15. She was then 39 — the same age he is now — and married with three children.
To believe his supporters, theirs is the most romantic of stories. Their paths first cross at an exclusive Catholic school in Amiens, where he is a star pupil and she a teacher.
Together they collaborate on an adaptation of a play. every Friday night after school they meet, poring over the script and bonding over art. Before long, with him now 16, they are starring in a drama of their own, having fallen head over heels in love. Not even the fact that Brigitte’s own daughter is a classmate of emmanuel’s can dampen their passion.
Their families, naturally, disapprove. Macron’s mother begs Brigitte to give up her son so that he can have a normal life, and a chance of having children. She tearfully insists she cannot.
eventually, the boy is sent to Paris to complete his studies in the hope of curing him of his infatuation. But it is not to be: Brigitte follows him there, sacrificing her own marriage to a wealthy banker, in order to pursue her love.
Now 64, Brigitte cuts a remarkable figure alongside her youthful groom. Slim, stylish — in that way that only French women can be — she remains alluring despite, or perhaps because of, the lines on her face.
She is clearly intelligent, dynamic — and more than qualified for the role of France’s First Lady.
There’s just one small problem: however equal their relationship may be now, there is no getting away from the fact that the manner in which they got together was, not to put too fine a point upon it, deeply disturbing.
Of course, men marry or date much younger women all the time. Indeed, much has been made of the fact that the age difference between Mr and Mrs Macron is about the same as that between Donald and Melania Trump.
But there is one critical difference: Melania was not 15 when she met her future husband. had she been, he would never have been able to run for President.
Quite understandably, people would have been repulsed by the idea of a male teacher falling for a teenage schoolgirl. It would have been seen as a grotesque abuse of power, inexcusable predatory behaviour.
So why, when the roles are reversed as they are with the Macrons, is the relationship somehow seen as less scandalous? Because there is surely no greater abuse of power than a teacher seducing — or allowing themselves to be seduced by — an under-age pupil. Regardless of which party instigates contact, the onus is always on the adult to resist temptation.
Some commentators have even praised the Macrons for having a relationship based on intellectual equality rather than narrow precepts such as age.
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy this. A boy of 16 — four years older than my son — is an ingenu, however mature they may seem. They have no real experience of life, no sense of who they really are.
A person around 40 years of age, by contrast, and with three children, is a different proposition. For teacher Brigitte to engage in a relationship with pupil emmanuel at that time was not just risque, it was downright weird.
If she had been a man and he a girl, we would be in Roman Polanski territory. As it is, whatever else their relationship may be, let us not pretend that it is in any way normal.