Emmanuel & Brigitte Macron's Age Gap Is Seriously Scandalous

French President Emmanuel Macron is a politician with an uncomfortable age gap with his wife, Brigitte Macron. Not only are they a couple with a bigger age gap than you would think, but they met in truly scandalous fashion. Emmanuel was only 15 years old when he first crossed paths with his future wife, who was 24 years older and 39 years old at the time. Brigitte was a teacher at the Catholic Lycee La Providence in France, where Emmanuel was a student. Although he wasn't enrolled in any of her classes, the two started to get to know each other well while working on a production of "Art of Comedy" for the school play. "Every Friday I went to write a play with her for several hours," Emmanuel later revealed, per the Daily Mail. "We spoke about everything. And I discovered we had always known one another," he added. After the play was performed, Emmanuel raised eyebrows when he planted a kiss on the teacher-advisor's cheek.

Suspicions about a possible romance between Brigitte and the teenager were aroused, and Emmanuel's parents eventually decided he should change schools and sent him to a boarding school. "Emmanuel had to leave for Paris. I told myself that he would fall in love with someone his [own] age. It didn't happen," Brigitte said in an interview with Paris Match in November 2023. "I had many brilliant pupils, and none had his capability. I have always admired him," she added.

Distance did not extinguish the flame of their love, but their romance was put on the backburner for years — at least publicly — and they were eventually married in 2007. That was only a year after Brigitte divorced her first husband, with whom she shared children who were a similar age to Emmanuel.

Even though she claims their romance had innocent beginnings, Brigitte Macron knew she had a scandalous love life with Emmanuel Macron, as they kept it under wraps for years. Apparently, she was attempting to protect her children. "I took time so I would not wreck their lives. That lasted 10 years, the time to put them on the rails," Brigitte told Paris Match. After a decade of keeping their love secretive, Brigitte felt it was time to come clean to her family. "If I had not made that choice, I would have missed out on my life. I was very happy with my children, and at the same time I felt that I had to live 'this love,'" she told Elle France in December 2017.

According to Brigitte, she and Emmanuel shared a deep bond in the earlier years, but she endorsed the idea of him going to boarding school. "There was nothing between us at that time, but the spiteful gossip was already making the rounds," she told Elle France. In that same interview, the first lady of France likened their early connection to the "Platonic idea" of meeting the person you are meant to be with. "Given our age difference, that fit wasn't so obvious for us, but we fit," she told the publication.

When the couple finally wed years after meeting at school as pupil and teacher, Emmanuel shared words with his like-aged stepchildren. "Thanks for accepting us, a not quite normal couple," he said in footage from their wedding that aired as part of a documentary on France 3, per Newsweek.