French presidential bet Emmanuel Macron, 39, captured worldwide attention not only for his plans for France. His marriage to Brigitte Trogneux, 64, also made headlines because of their nearly 24-year age gap and their unconventional love story.
The relationship surprised Macron's parents, mom Françoise and dad Jean-Michel, like most people. They admitted they were "a bit shaken" about their young son falling in love with someone whose three kids were around the same ages as Macron.
They opposed their son's relationship with Trogneux in the beginning, Telegraph reported. They sent him away to Paris from Amiens so he could finish high school. Macron and Trogneux, however, kept in touch and the parents learned of this by accident.
The story was Macron and his parents got into a heated argument when they learned he was still having a relationship with Trogneux all those months his parents kept them apart. The enamored young man, after all, told his lady love he will come back to marry her. His parents attempted to match him with other women his age but Macron fought for his girlfriend.
Macron first met Trogneux as a 15-year-old student at the La Providence, a Jesuit high school. Macron and Trogneux bonded over a drama production they both wrote and created. Even then Trogneux already saw the young man's brilliance.
Their marriage, however, didn't happen until Trogneux divorced her husband, André-Louis Auzière, in 2006 and the pair got married a year later. He was 29-years-old and she was 54-years-old, as per Independent.
Ten years later and the couple face another challenge to their relationship as the whole world fixates on their marriage while Macron bids for the presidency. Most of France's locals, however, learned to shrug off the unconventional relationship, as per Local France.
"This couple in reverse shows an evolution in society -- it's not a powerful man with a younger wife," Vanity Fair France described the Macron's marriage today. "That says things about Emmanuel Macron's personality."
