Was it just “joking around”, or, as the official party line claims, a “moment of closeness” between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte, that set tongues wagging around the world this week? After a video of Brigitte Macron, 72, appearing to shove her 47-year-old husband in the face went viral on Monday, “Le Slap” – or “Slapgate” as it quickly became known – went viral. Probably because it didn’t look as though the pair were “decompressing one last time” before beginning their diplomatic visit to Hanoi, Vietnam, as a source desperately claimed.
Initially, conspiracy theorists asserted that the footage of the heated row was part of a plot to discredit the president, and had come straight from the Kremlin. In a world of AI-generated videos, where a pope can be seen wearing a Balenciaga coat and Macron can be spied dancing to 1980s hit song “Voyage Voyage” by French singer Desireless in a video he once made himself to make a point about deepfakes, it seemed it was something to consider.
Certainly, Macron’s first reaction was to condemn the videos of him, saying the footage had been manipulated by people he described as “crackpots”. He referred to other incidents, including the images shot on a train to Kyiv, in which some accounts falsely claimed he could be seen sharing cocaine. For the rest of us, though, this incident looked different, and it felt as though the president was putting on quite the show in an attempt to dismiss the furore.
The Macrons presented a united front, yet there was ultimately no avoiding their frustration as media attention grew: by the end of the week, Macron admitted that the video showing the altercation had become what he called “some kind of planetary catastrophe” (a slight exaggeration). But regardless of how the Macrons tried to frame the incident, it was a sharp-eyed glimpse into the couple’s relationship; it suggested some underlying tension between them coming to the surface.
Perhaps it is, indeed, just the tip of the iceberg. Because it’s no secret – though it is often too easily brushed off, or forgotten – that at the heart of the Macrons’ relationship lies an ethical dilemma at best; a gross abuse of power at worst. The couple met when Brigitte Trogneux was 39 and Emmanuel was just 15.
Brigitte was already married to banker André Auzière, and a mother of three children – Sébastien, Laurence, and Tiphaine. In fact, one of her daughters, Laurence, was in the same class as the boy her mother would eventually marry, at La Providence High School, a Catholic secondary school in Amiens.
Emmanuel was “intellectually gifted” and “precocious” as a teenager, and he and his future wife bonded over literature and theatre, Brigitte told Paris Match during an interview in 2017. The two of them wrote a play together; she later recalled, during the time she spent with him, having a “feeling I was working with Mozart”. “The writing became an excuse,” she said. “I felt that we had always known each other.”
Despite their “bond” remaining supposedly platonic, by the following year, Emmanuel’s parents were removing him from the school, concerned after finding out about the relationship through a family friend. “We just couldn’t believe it,” his mother, Françoise Noguès-Macron, told Anne Fulda, author of the book Emmanuel Macron: A Perfect Young Man. “What is clear is that when Emmanuel met Brigitte, we couldn’t just say, ‘That’s great’.”
Physically separating the pair didn’t work – by the time the French president was 17, he was already declaring that he would marry Brigitte one day. Later, he would write in his 2016 book, Révolution, that he was captivated by her intelligence and charisma. “I resisted for a long time, but love is stronger than conventions,” he told Elle magazine in 2020.
The thing is, it was hardly something as simple as “conventions” that made their relationship objectionable – the exact year they met, either 1993 or 1994, has reportedly never been confirmed, in what is thought by some to be an effort to obscure legal “complications” or questions that might be raised, since Emmanuel was just a child.
While Brigitte has always insisted that they only fell in love after he was 15 (which is the age of consent in France), she risked serving three years in prison, since the law bans sexual relationships between teachers and pupils under 18.
Regardless of the justifications, then, she knew it was wrong. The couple didn’t marry until years later, in October 2007, when Emmanuel was 29 and Brigitte was 54, but the foundations of their relationship were set: a narrative of manipulation, societal ostracism, and a profound imbalance of power that has shaped their personal and political lives ever since.
Their age gap is more than just a number – it’s a gap that would rarely, if ever, go without objection if it were between an older man and a teenage girl. Brigitte was also in a position of power, a teacher – an authority figure who was responsible for a vulnerable and impressionable adolescent. At their wedding, Emmanuel acknowledged the obvious peculiarity, saying, “We’re not a normal couple, but we are a couple.”
Initially, they faced a backlash to their unusual relationship. According to Maëlle Brun, who wrote an unauthorised biography of Brigitte, there were repercussions of sorts; they were ostracised, anonymous letters were sent to their families, and there were even instances of spitting on their doorstep. The friends that Brigitte had made through her first marriage disappeared – yet the Macrons’ relationship apparently flourished.
In the years since, as Emmanuel charted his rise to the top of French politics, Brigitte has been described as a “shadow power” at his side. She is believed to be an influential figure in his career; there have been reports of her becoming involved in his ministerial duties and presidential campaigns, despite some grumbling over the propriety of this – and perceived conflicts of interest – among the public.
For years, despite the doubts that have surrounded their relationship because of how it began, the couple have been good at keeping up appearances in front of the camera. But this week’s footage talks to the tension at the core of their marriage: an imbalance of power that they have seemingly never escaped. Lip-reading experts claimed that, in the moments after the “slap” – which, really, looked more like a shove in the face – Brigitte muttered, “Dégage, espèce de loser,” as her husband offered his arm – in English, “Stay away, you loser.”
A funny joke, as Emmanuel claims? It seems unlikely. A clearer angle, perhaps, on the dark heart of a controversial relationship – one that has left an indelible mark on the couple’s lives and careers. Though it is often portrayed as a romantic saga, the story of the Macrons is layered with complexities, and begs for scrutiny.
In the golden salons of the Élysée, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron may project the image of a couple who triumphed against the odds and have defied scandal and stigma. But beyond the veneer of fairytale romance lies something that is not just more complex, but far more uncomfortable: a relationship that began in the blurred margins of power and abuse, with this week’s events leaving many wondering if it remains there.
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