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The remarkable relationship of Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron

On France's national holiday, the focus of the nation will be on its president - and his very special wife, Brigitte

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and his wife Brigitte Macron wave goodbye to Ecuador's President and his wife after a meeting at the Elysee Palace on July 11, 2019, in Paris. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte arrive at the Villa Kerylos for a state dinner with China's President on March 24, 2019 in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, near Nice on the French riviera. (Photo by JEAN-PAUL PELISSIER / POOL / AFP)

France's President Emmanuel Macron (C) and his wife Brigitte (L) pose for a group photo during the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019. (Photo by Dominique JACOVIDES / POOL / AFP)

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and his wife Brigitte Macron stand in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg, eastern France, during a military ceremony as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the First World War, on November 4, 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron, his wife Brigitte Macron, King Felipe VI of Spain and his wife Queen Letizia arrive to visit the retrospective of works by Spanish painter and sculptor Joan Miro (1893-1983) at Paris's Grand Palais, in Paris, France, October 5, 2018. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte arrive for the state dinner at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen on August 28, 2018. (Photo by ludovic MARIN / AFP)

Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, Danish Crown Princess Mary and Education Minister and Youth Affairs Jean-Michel Blanquer visit the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 24, 2019. Jacques Demarthon/Pool via REUTERS

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron applaud as France players arrive to attend a reception to honour the France soccer team after their victory in the 2018 Russia Soccer World Cup, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and his wife Brigitte Macron wave goodbye to Ecuador's President and his wife after a meeting at the Elysee Palace on July 11, 2019, in Paris. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte arrive at the Villa Kerylos for a state dinner with China's President on March 24, 2019 in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, near Nice on the French riviera. (Photo by JEAN-PAUL PELISSIER / POOL / AFP)

France's President Emmanuel Macron (C) and his wife Brigitte (L) pose for a group photo during the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019. (Photo by Dominique JACOVIDES / POOL / AFP)

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and his wife Brigitte Macron stand in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg, eastern France, during a military ceremony as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the First World War, on November 4, 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron, his wife Brigitte Macron, King Felipe VI of Spain and his wife Queen Letizia arrive to visit the retrospective of works by Spanish painter and sculptor Joan Miro (1893-1983) at Paris's Grand Palais, in Paris, France, October 5, 2018. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte arrive for the state dinner at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen on August 28, 2018. (Photo by ludovic MARIN / AFP)

Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, Danish Crown Princess Mary and Education Minister and Youth Affairs Jean-Michel Blanquer visit the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 24, 2019. Jacques Demarthon/Pool via REUTERS

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron applaud as France players arrive to attend a reception to honour the France soccer team after their victory in the 2018 Russia Soccer World Cup, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

Mary Kenny Twitter Email

July 13 2019 02:30 AM

The French always put on a good show for their national holiday, tomorrow, and at the centre of proceedings will be their dazzling president, Emmanuel Macron. Along with his renowned wife, Brigitte.

Madame Macron is not the First Lady: the French people rejected conferring on her that American-style title. But she remains "essential" to her husband, in his words, and is involved in everything he does.

The background to their relationship has been forensically examined by a witty French writer, Sylvie Bommel, in a book recently published in Paris, Il venait d'avoir dix-sept ans. ("He had just turned 17.") The circumstances were striking: he was 17, she was over 40, married and with three children. And however unorthodox their coupledom, the Jesuit order has consistently stood by them - Brigitte taught at Jesuit schools, and Macron attended one.

Brigitte Trogneux was the youngest of six, possibly an "afterthought" child: her eldest sister was 21 when she was born. Her large family has made her a people-person, and she always has an extended circle of friends, whom she consults over matters small and great. She consulted them over whether she should bother to marry Emmanuel, when they were contentedly living together in 2006 and the families had accepted their union. The friends said, firmly, yes. Anyway, Emmanuel had resolved to marry her from the start.

The Trogneux had a successful chocolate and confectionery business in Amiens (dating from 1872). There was a family tragedy when a daughter, Maryvonne, died in a car crash in her twenties. Brigitte was only six.

She proceeded through school normally, and came of age in the early 1970s. Though the sex revolution was changing values, the "pill was difficult to obtain, sexuality [still] rhymed with virginity, maternity or sin". The simplest solution for that generation in French provincial life, writes Bommel, was marriage. "Too fast, too early."

Enter the husband: André-Louis Auzière, two years older than Brigitte, and a banker. Asked to describe Mr Auzière, witnesses come up with words like "nice", "charming", "discreet", "never made a fuss", "tall and thin", "intelligent", and helpful to colleagues. Also: "a little taciturn", "not great fun", "hard to remember him - he was so neutral", "a little like tepid water - next to her sparkling water". Even in the banking world, "he left few traces".

Brigitte's favourite novel has always been Flaubert's Madame Bovary, about a woman driven to distraction by the boredom of provincial life and an unexciting husband.

Women were at this time advised to have their first baby by 30, and so, a year after her 1974 marriage, Brigitte gave birth to her son Sebastian: two years later came daughter Laurence and, in 1984, Tiphanie. Brigitte also studied for a degree. For her master's, her chosen subject was courtly love.

Between studies and childcare, she cooked and entertained elegantly. Her husband's job took them to Alsace, and there she began teaching: she found she had a gift for it. Brigitte's pupils compared her to Robin Williams' inspirational teacher in Dead Poets Society. They also noted that she was chic and well-presented.

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And so, when her husband's job moved again, her teaching career led her back to Amiens, and to the fateful meeting with young Emmanuel Macron.

Macron's parents were doctors. Amiens, according to Bommel, is a town of small social divisions. The doctors and the lawyers were not in the same milieu as trade. But a country house at Le Touquet was an asset, which the Trogneux possessed.

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte arrive for a farewell ceremony at the Royal Theatre on August 29, 2018 in Copenhagen. (Photo by Jacques Witt / POOL / AFP)

Emmanuel Macron was always unusual. He was born soon after his mother had lost a daughter, in a still-birth: psychologists might have called him a "replacement" baby. He had little interest in play, never had "mates", or leered, with other adolescents, at pictures of girls. His deepest family relationship was not with his parents, but with his literary-minded grandmother, Manette. He was never close to his younger brother and sister either.

When Brigitte and Emmanuel met at their Jesuit school, the attraction was evident, especially on his side. Perhaps it was the Dead Poets Society beguilement. He was only briefly her pupil, but they worked on drama projects together, and thus did the relationship develop. It was initially intellectual and of the spirit, rather than carnal. It grew from there.

She delayed leaving her husband until her youngest child had finished school. There was a long period when she spent the week in Amiens and the weekends with Emmanuel in Paris, where he, too, started out as a banker, chez Rothschild, and then switched, effortlessly, to political office. They "couldn't wait for the end of the week", to be rapturously together. They were an acknowledged couple by the time he was 22, and she 46. They married, with the blessing of her children.

Her first husband faded into private life, never seen, never commenting, never interviewed.

When asked about the age gap between the presidential couple, Brigitte has said: "It's complicated." To be sure.

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French President's wife Brigitte Macron (2L) stands next to her husband French President Emmanuel Macron (R) as they together with Belgium's royal couple welcome guests for a state dinner at the Royal Palace in Laeken, Belgium on November 19, 2018, during a two-day state visit of the French President. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP)

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The remarkable relationship of Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron

On France's national holiday, the focus of the nation will be on its president - and his very special wife, Brigitte

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