By Marie Dhumieres — After winning the top spot in the first round of France’s presidential election, centrist Emmanuel Macron brought his wife Brigitte on stage before cheering supporters and said, “Without her, I wouldn’t be me.” She has been in her 39-year-old husband’s life since he was 15 — first as a teacher, then lover and now as a partner in his pursuit to become modern France’s youngest president. The 64-year-old is Macron’s closest collaborator, whom he has pledged to give an official role at the presidential palace if he emerges victorious in the May 7 runoff vote.
“Every night we debrief together and we repeat what we have heard about each other,” she told a magazine in 2016.
Brigitte Trogneux was born on April 13, 1953, in Amiens in northern France, which is also Emmanuel Macron’s hometown, into a prosperous family.
In the early 1990s, she was blown away by a young man acting in a production of Milan Kundera’s Jacques and his Master. It was Emmanuel.
“At the age of 17, Emmanuel said to me: ‘Whatever you do, I will marry you!’,” Brigitte Macron told Paris Match last April.
Brigitte left her husband Andre Louis Auziere, a banker, in 2006 and married Macron a year later.
Described as warm and down-to-earth by those who know her, her positive disposition has left a mark on her friends.
Yet the life with her politician husband remains a major focus. “I am lucky to share this with Emmanuel, even if in regards to politics I haven’t had much choice,” she has said.
Brigitte’s willingness to be a public figure stands in stark contrast to the partner of her husband’s rival Marine Le Pen.
The private life of 47-year-old Louis Aliot, who has been involved in Le Pen’s National Front (FN) party since the late 1980s, has not been part of her campaign.
“The French people are going to elect a president. They are not going to elect a couple or half of a couple,” said Aliot. “I know my place.” — AFP
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