Daughter slams critics of new First Lady

Paris, May 14 

The daughter of France’s new First Lady Brigitte Trogneux has slammed the critics who have attacked the 24-year age gap between her and husband President-elect Emmanuel Macron, the media reported.

Tiphaine Auziere, 32, on Saturday said “jealousy” was behind the “abhorrent” attacks targeting her 64-year-old mother’s relationship with Macron, 39, who sworn-in as the nation’s 25th President following his landslide 66 per cent presidential election win against far-Right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen, The Daily Mail reported.

Auziere, a lawyer by profession, said: “I don’t want to give credence to people who do this kind of thing.” “I find abhorrent in France in the 21st century such attacks, which would not be carried out against a male politician or a male companion of a female politician.” 

Trogneux and Macron’s romance started when the President-elect starred in one of her plays at the Jesuit school Lycee La Providence.

Macron also shared a class at a Catholic school with one of Trogneux’s two daughters Laurence, who is also 39.

The couple also went on to write a play together, which they later admitted was the period when they fell in love. At the time, Macron was just 16, reports The Daily Mail. 

Trogneux, a mother-of-three, from a renowned family in the town of Amiens, later left her banker husband Andre-Louis Auziere for Macron.

Before the election, Macron broached the abuse targeted at his wife, saying she was the victim of “everyday misogyny”.  “If I were 20 years older than my wife, nobody would have thought for a single second that I couldn’t be an intimate partner,” he had said. 

Trogneux, now a grandmother of eight, is also expected to play an active role in the new government. — IANS