Meet Brigitte Macron: The remarkable 63 Year wife behind French presidential favourite 39 year Emmanuel Macron

If her husband becomes France’s next president, Brigitte Macron will be the most unusual first lady the country has ever seen.

While French first ladies have a chequered history — making headlines for excessive spending, extra-marital affairs, treason and even murder — they’ve never been as central a figure in the formative years of their husbands’ lives as Brigitte has been for front-runner Emmanuel Macron. Brigitte Macron, who is 24 years older than the candidate, has been his guide and coach since he was 15, and is playing an active role in his campaign, advising him on speeches and effectively helping set his agenda.

“Emmanuel Macron wouldn’t have been able to embark on this adventure without her,” said Marc Ferracci, a campaign adviser and a witness at the couple’s 2007 wedding. “Her presence is essential for him.”

With two weeks to go before the decisive round of the vote, multiple polls show that Macron will defeat the far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen with a large margin. In a speech on Sunday after winning the first round of the vote, the 39-year-old candidate thanked Brigitte, 63, for being “always present.”

Without her, “I wouldn't be who I am,” he said, as his supporters screamed out her name. The couple was spotted hand-in-hand in all public sightings on voting day.

If the Macrons become the next residents of the Elysee palace, Brigitte will join a list of colourful first ladies.

An outspoken 5-foot-4 inch former high school French literature and Latin teacher, Brigitte comes from a bourgeois family, named Trogneux, renowned for its chocolate factory in the Northern French town of Amiens. She was a drama coach at the private Jesuit school in the town in 1992 when she met 15-year-old Macron. 

He acted in her theatre pieces, with their association slowly developing into a romance that pushed her to divorce her husband and the father of her three children.

Independent.co.uk