« Brigitte, a Free Woman »: Flashback on Macron’s Love Affair
She was his high school teacher, and he was the age of her children. Despite the age difference, they married, and she supported him to become the most controversial First Lady of France ever.
A story rooted in reality that highlights the broad outlines of Brigitte‘s life, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, and the woman he described years ago as “a free, responsible woman and a face of modernity.”
But that teacher who fell in love with her student and became attached to him despite the quarter-century age difference is now the most controversial First Lady of France, where her news is rarely out of sight before the spotlight turns back to her.
“Brigitte, a Free Woman”
That’s how Macron described her during a radio interview in 2018, the same expression chosen by the production and distribution company “Gomont” for an upcoming television series inspired by the life of the French president’s wife.
In a statement, the production company said it had started writing a series dedicated to Brigitte Macron, to trace “the romantic journey of the First Lady,” without yet specifying the cast.
It clarified that the series would be titled “Brigitte, a Free Woman,” and would consist of 6 episodes, each lasting 45 minutes, noting that the screenplay was co-written by Bénédicte Charles and Olivier Bobonneau.
The duo had previously collaborated on writing police series produced by the second television channel, but this is the first time they have been inspired by Brigitte Macron‘s life, the woman who attracts the world’s attention, for filmmakers who dare to create an artistic work about the First Lady of France while she is still alive.
The repercussions quickly materialized with an announcement by Brigitte‘s close associates that she had no connection to the series, in an attempt to distance the First Lady from a new controversy added to the storm of rumors claiming she was “transgender,” prompting Macron himself to deny them.
Flashback
In a statement to the local newspaper “Le Figaro,” Bénédicte Charles spoke of the presence of “flashback” scenes recalling some of the most important events France has experienced over the past 30 years.
She added that “the sensitivity of the subject of the series is a serious challenge, and we must grasp it before freeing ourselves from it to offer imagination.”
Charles considered that “Brigitte Macron is a wonderful character, and we wanted to deal with her in a narrative, almost melodramatic way, because of the romantic spirit of her destiny.”
The love story between Macron and Brigitte has always attracted interest and controversy alike, and these romantically charged details may have encouraged filmmakers to choose them, convinced they could attract crowds.
The story
In fact, the story seems truly worthy of interest, as Macron was only 15 when she was already a married woman of 39 when the story began.
She was his teacher at “La Providence” high school, a Catholic school in northern France, where they met when he was a student. They shared the stage at the theater in Amiens, where Brigitte watched Macron’s performance closely, appearing in a clown costume in a play, and he was fascinated by every detail of her, a love described by social relationship experts as resembling that of a son for his mother.
At that time, Brigitte was already married and had three children about Macron‘s age. She chose to prioritize them, while the boy looked at her differently and found excuses to meet her, even his parents thought he might be in love with his teacher’s daughter, before discovering he was in love with the teacher herself.
Their natural reaction was to push him away by sending him to a boarding school in Paris, a step that somewhat disappointed Brigitte, but she had to acknowledge the age and status difference, telling herself that he “would fall in love with someone his own age,” as she said in an interview.
“But that didn’t happen,” she adds, pointing out that fate wanted them to meet again, and Brigitte was then separated from her husband, starting a journey similar to a movie with Macron, walking side by side to the Élysée.
