• Controversy: Brigitte Macron will denounce those who spread the hoax that she used to be a man
  • Politics Brigitte Macron's power at the Elysée: her husband calls her every hour and a half to keep her up to date

Brigitte Marie Claude Trogneux (70) and Emmanuel Jean Michel Frédéric Macron (46) have been the protagonists of a complicated love story that they sealed 16 years ago in the town hall of Le Touquet, in the north of France. They did so in the same marriage hall where Brigitte had already said "I do" 33 years earlier to her first husband, banker André Louis Auzière, who died in December 2019, whom she divorced in 2006.

Both ceremonies were officiated by the mayor himself, Léonce Deprez. And, in that same room, on May 7, 2017, the Macrons voted in their country's presidential elections. That night, he became, at age 39, the youngest president in French history and Brigitte first lady.

The Macron couple.AGENCIES

The spotlight was on the presidential couple and, especially, on her. Brigitte, elegant and stylish, drew attention for a detail that did not go unnoticed: she wore two wedding rings on her left ring finger. Did he keep the ring from his first marriage? The story surrounding the mystery of her two wedding rings is far more tragic.

Terrible accident

The drama that marked the life of the first lady of France happened on February 24, 1961, when Brigitte, the youngest of six siblings in a prosperous family, was eight years old.

On that day, her sister Maryvonne Trogneux, 27, who was pregnant with their second daughter, and her husband, Paul Farcy, were on their way to Paris to participate in a convention of agricultural cooperatives. They never reached their destination. On the road, a truck with Dutch license plates driving in the opposite direction rammed them. Maryvonne and Paul passed away at the time. The health services that went to the scene tried to get the baby out alive who was expecting in an advanced state of pregnancy. There was nothing they could do to save his life. All three died in the crash.

It was her parents who personally communicated the tragic news to little Brigitte. Bibi, as she was called at home, learned that her older sister, uncle and future niece had died in the accident, leaving her firstborn, Nathalie, orphaned at just six years old.

Bibi asked for her sister's wedding ring as a souvenir, a ring that she has been modifying in size and fitting to her size, but which she promised to wear always. That is what it has done.

While the first ring worn by the first lady is the one that Manu, as she affectionately calls her husband, gave her on their wedding day and symbolizes their love for each other, the second ring continues to be that of her deceased sister, the one who reminds her to live in the moment. "My older sister died in a car accident, with her husband and the baby she was expecting. I was taken aback. Nothing helps you... She's always with me," Brigitte said.

Second Death

A year after the accident, tragedy struck the Trogneuxes again: Nathalie, the first lady's six-year-old niece, died of acute peritonitis.

Both tragedies provoked in Brigitte a fear of death that she herself confesses to this day. "I am convinced that death awaits us at every moment. I live the present very intensely... I have known the terror of death because when I was very young it came into my life," she said.

More romantic is the explanation of why Emmanuel Macron also wears two rings, one on the ring finger of each hand. The one on his left hand is the one he exchanged with Brigitte on their wedding day, while the one on his right hand was left in limbo until he himself revealed the mystery: "They are both from the same woman". Both are from Brigitte. Although, to understand it well we have to go back to the moment when the couple meets for the first time.

Close-up of Brigitte with her rings. AGENCIES

Brigitte and Emmanuel met in the 1992-1993 school year at the Lycée La Providence in Amiens, where Brigitte taught language and theatre. In those years, the future first lady already had her three children, the result of her marriage to Auzière. The middle of them, Laurence, now a cardiologist, was born the same year as Emmanuel Macron, and both were classmates in the same class where Brigitte was a teacher. Laurence used to invite Macron to his home, where it was common to see him sharing duties, even having dinner. When Emmanuel left, they sometimes talked about him, how smiling he was, how intelligent he was. No one in the Auzière household imagined what was taking place behind the scenes.

At the time, Brigitte was 39 and Emmanuel was 15. An age that was on the verge of what the law contemplates as a sexual crime and that is included in article 227-27 of the Penal Code. "She risked much more than me," Emmanuel Macron said, referring to the beginning of their romantic relationship. "I was just a student, and she was a married woman with three children, and my teacher."

Clandestine relationship

But love is what she has, and the Macrons' love took hold the following year, when Brigitte organized a drama class and told her students, including Macron, that she needed volunteers to rewrite The Art of Comedy, by the Italian author Eduardo de Filippo. Emmanuel was delighted to be involved in the initiative. The classes and rehearsals led to a clandestine relationship between the teacher, who was 24 years older than her student.

Going back to the second ring that the President of the French Republic wears on the ring finger of his right hand, the one that we have left unexplained: it was given to him by Brigitte in 2001, when he went to Nigeria to continue his higher education. They were going to be separated for six months and it was the first time they had gone so long without seeing each other. So Brigitte bought a gold wedding ring and gave it to him as a pledge.

  • Emmanuel Macron
  • France