Classroom crush to face push: Key moments in the Macrons’ relationship

Published

2 months ago

May 28, 2025

admin

French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed a video of him being pushed in the face by his wife as “nonsense”.

The clip, which shows Brigitte Macron place her hands on her husband’s face as they prepare to exit their plane in Vietnam, sparked suggestions that the French first couple were caught in the middle of an argument.

But Mr Macron said afterwards it was a case of “simply joking with my wife, as we often do”.

The pair’s relationship has been in the headlines since Mr Macron’s political career put him, and his loved ones, in the public eye.

Both have been questioned about their 25-year age gap – he is 47 and she is 72 – as well as their unconventional meet.

Use our slider below to look through some of the key moments of the Macrons’ relationship.

When Emmanuel met Brigitte

Mr Macron met Brigitte Trogneux, as she was then known, in 1993 when he was 15.

At the time, she worked as a teacher at his secondary school in the French city of Amiens. As a student, Mr Macron was not in the classes his future wife taught, but the pair spent time together while working on a school play and during theatre workshops she ran.

She was almost 40, married to banker Andre Auziere and had three children, Sebastien, Laurence, and Tiphaine.

According to biographer Anne Fulda, who interviewed the Macron family, the French leader’s parents initially thought he had a crush on Laurence Auziere, who was in his class at school. But in fact it was her mum.

Mr Macron’s mother, Francoise, is quoted in Ms Fulda’s book as saying: “We couldn’t believe it. What is clear is that when Emmanuel met Brigitte we couldn’t just say: ‘That’s great!'”

His parents also allegedly told Brigitte to stay away from their son until he was 18, to which she replied: “I cannot promise you anything.”

Years later, she would confide in a friend that being with the young French president was like “working with Mozart”.

‘I will marry you’

Defying the orders from Mr Macron’s parents, the pair kept in touch, even after he was sent to Paris to complete his education at one of France’s finest schools.

Now around the age of 17, Mr Macron told his future wife: “I will be back for you. Whatever you do, I will marry you.”

In a 2017 interview with Elle France magazine, Mrs Macron said there was “nothing between” the two of them at the time he went to Paris, but it “all unfolded very slowly”.

She said: “The great distances that separated us physically until 2007. But we wrote to each other all the time during that period.

“It all unfolded very slowly. I gradually brought my family to realise that. Emmanuel gradually brought his family to realise that.”

She admitted at the time she was concerned for her children as “spiteful gossip” had been “making the rounds”.

The couple eventually got married in 2007, a year after she divorced Mr Auziere. At the time of their wedding, he was 29 and she was 54.

Life as the French first lady

Nearly a decade after tying the knot, Mr Macron made a bid for the presidency, which he won in May 2017.

From the moment Mr Macron started campaigning in 2016, his wife was with him on the election trail, during which he said he would “clarify” the role of the head of state’s spouse.

Shortly after becoming the first lady, Mrs Macron was asked about the relationship with her husband, and their age gap – which is the same as Donald and Melania Trump.

She told Elle France that the difference in their ages is a “joke between” them, adding: “Anything anyone might say about the 20 years’ difference is just a big nothing.”

She said: “Of course, we have breakfast, me with my wrinkles, him with his fresh face, but that’s how it is. If I had not made that choice, I would have missed out on my life.”

Dispelling rumours

As a couple, Mr and Mrs Macron have had to dispel various rumours that have emerged about them both.

In 2017 Mr Macron laughed off rumours of a gay affair outside his marriage, saying: “If you’re told I lead a double life… it’s because my hologram has escaped.”

Then in 2022, Mrs Macron launched legal action over the spread of false claims that she was transgender.

In September 2024, she was awarded €8,000 (£6,000) in damages by a Paris court after it found two women guilty of spreading the false allegations.

World

Mile after mile of grey rubble – the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

Published

9 hours ago

July 29, 2025

admin

Mile after mile of grey rubble - the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

We are on our way to Gaza with the Jordanian military.

The aircraft is hot and noisy and as we get closer, the atmosphere gets more tense. Aircrew gesture with their hands to tell us how many minutes there are to go. Fifteen. Six. One.

The Jordanian military C-130 flies out over the sea before banking and heading inland for Gaza. The parachutes, attached to the top of each of the eight pallets, are prepared for the drop.

As land approaches, I look down. The ground is modern and built up – we’re still over southern Israel.

Then a few short minutes later, it’s clear we’ve crossed Gaza’s border.

The ground turns grey, the shapes of buildings disappear, there are no cars, no people.

You can see the outline of communities and villages that are now flattened. Mile after mile of grey rubble.

This mission by the Royal Jordanian Air Force is one of the first aid drop flights since Israel announced they could resume. It is carrying eight tonnes of food and baby formula.

Foreign nations know this is a deeply flawed way of delivering aid – road convoys are far more effective and can carry far more – but the Jordanian flight crew say the need in Gaza is so urgent, it’s simply an attempt to do something.

When the aircraft ramp opens, the aid is pushed out and it’s gone in seconds.

The parachutes seem peaceful as they open and their fall slows. But dropping food from the sky is a dangerous and undignified way to feed people.

On the ground it’s chaos.

Our colleagues in Gaza say the fighting for food has become lethal – gangs are now punching and stabbing people to reach it first. Most critically, it’s not getting to the weakest. To those who really need it.

One man becomes emotional as he describes racing to find food and leaving with nothing.

“I came only for my son,” he says. “I wouldn’t come here if it was just for me. When you have a child, they need bread.”

He’s an engineer in normal times and seems in disbelief that his life has come to this. “The aid comes from the sky and we have to run after it. I’ve never had to do this in my life.”

It is hoped Israel’s humanitarian pauses in fighting will rapidly increase food distribution by road but it’s very unclear how that is going.

Hospitals in Gaza have reported another 14 deaths from starvation in the last 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.

Airstrikes killed another at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza on Monday, local health officials said.

We cannot verify these numbers because Israel has not allowed international journalists access to Gaza.

And Monday’s flight came with strict media conditions.

We were told the Israeli side had warned that any shots of Gaza filmed from the air could result in these aid flights being cancelled.

But Israel’s tight grip has not stopped the images from Gaza getting out, horrifying people around the world.

The question now is what more the international community will do about it.

World

Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Published

12 hours ago

July 28, 2025

admin

Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Two Israeli human rights organisations have said the country is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In reports published on Monday, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said Israel was carrying out “coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip”.

The two groups are the first major voices within Israeli society to make such accusations against the state during nearly 22 months of war against Hamas.

Israel has vehemently denied claims of genocide. David Mencer, a spokesperson for the government, called the allegation by the rights groups “baseless”.

He said: “There is no intent, (which is) key for the charge of genocide… it simply doesn’t make sense for a country to send in 1.9 million tonnes of aid, most of that being food, if there is an intent of genocide.”

B’Tselem director Yuli Novak called for urgent action, saying: “What we see is a clear, intentional attack on civilians in order to destroy a group.”

The organisation’s report “is one we never imagined we would have to write,” Ms Novak said. “The people of Gaza have been displaced, bombed, and starved, left completely stripped of their humanity and rights.”

PHR said Israel’s military campaign shows evidence of a “deliberate and systemic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems”.

Both organisations said Israel’s Western allies were enabling the genocidal campaign, and shared responsibility for suffering in Gaza.

“It couldn’t happen without the support of the Western world,” Ms Novak said. “Any leader that is not doing whatever they can to stop it is part of this horror.”

Hamas said the reports by the two groups were a “clear and unambiguous testimony from within Israeli society itself regarding the grave crimes perpetrated by the occupation regime against our people”.

Dire humanitarian conditions

Since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the deadly Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, nearly 60,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed, according to Gaza health officials.

Much of the infrastructure has been destroyed, and nearly the whole population of more than two million has been displaced.

An increasing number of people in Gaza are also dying from starvation and malnutrition, according to Gaza health authorities.

On Monday, the Gaza health ministry reported that at least 14 people had died from starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths during the war to 147.

Among the victims were 88 children, with most of the deaths occurring in recent weeks.

UN agencies say the territory is running out of food for its people and accuse Israel of not allowing enough aid deliveries to the enclave. Israel denies those claims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said “there is no starvation in Gaza” and vowed to fight on against Hamas.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that many in Gaza are facing starvation and implied that Israel could take further steps to improve humanitarian access.

Israel has repeatedly said its actions in Gaza are in self-defence, placing full responsibility for civilian casualties on Hamas. It cites the militant group’s refusal to release hostages, surrender, or stop operating within civilian areas – allegations that Hamas denies.

World

Why are airdrops on Gaza so dangerous?

Published

21 hours ago

July 28, 2025

admin

The United Nations has condemned airdrops on Gaza, warning they risk killing the starving Palestinians they are intended to help.

Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel parachuted aid packages into the territory for the first time in months at the weekend amid claims a third of the population has not eaten for days.

But Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general for the UN Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), has said they “will not reverse the deepening starvation” and often do more harm than good.

‘Make or break’ as starvation looms; Middle East latest

“They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians,” he wrote in a statement on X.

What is an airdrop – and why are they dangerous?

There are several ways humanitarian agencies and international allies can deliver aid to regions in need – by land, by sea, or by air.

While parachuting in supply packages from planes may look impressive, airdrops are “fraught with problems”, Sky correspondent in Jordan Sally Lockwood says, and often used as a “desperate last resort”.

“Foreign nations know airdrops are a deeply flawed way of delivering aid,” she says.

“Palestinian sources tell us the aid that’s been dropped so far is not reaching the most vulnerable. They are an attempt to get something to a few – often viewed as a desperate last resort. Gaza is at that point.”

Military analyst Sean Bell says that delivering aid by air is ideally done when planes can land on a runway – but Gaza’s only landing strip in Rafah was shut down in 2021.

The alternative is “very dangerous”, he warns. “Aircraft flying relatively low and slow over a warzone isn’t very clever. When these parcels hit the ground, there’s a significant danger of them hitting people.”

Crucially, they can only deliver a fraction of what lorries can.

“The really big issue is aircraft can only deliver one truckload of aid. Gaza needs 500 truckloads a day, so it’s 0.2% of the daily need,” Bell adds.

They also risk falling into the wrong hands and ending up on the black market.

“Some of it has been looted by gangs and is on the black market already,” Lockwood says.

Why are they happening now?

Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza at the beginning of March, reopening some aid centres in May, but with restrictions they said were designed to stop goods being stolen by Hamas militants.

Israeli authorities control the only three border crossings to the strip: Kerem Shalom in the south, Crossing 147 in the centre, and Erez to the north.

Since the current conflict with Hamas began in October 2023, humanitarian agencies and world leaders have repeatedly accused Israel of not allowing enough deliveries through.

Mr Lazzarini says the UN has “the equivalent of 6,000 trucks” in neighbouring Jordan and Egypt “waiting for the green light to get into Gaza”.

Israel says it has commissioned a “one-week scale-up of aid”, having conducted its own airdrops on Saturday.

In a statement over the weekend, the Israeli Defence Forces said it will work with the UN and other aid organisations to ensure aid is delivered but no more details were given.

Meanwhile on Sunday, it began daily 10-hour pauses in fighting in three areas of Gaza to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 133 Palestinians had died of malnutrition by then, including 87 children.

Doctors Without Borders warned on Friday that 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are malnourished.

Israel says there is no famine in Gaza.

What are in the airdrops and who is behind them?

Air packages are largely being delivered by C-130 planes. Jordan is reported to be using 10 and the UAE eight.

They can carry eight pallets of goods each, weighing around eight tonnes in total, according to Lockwood, who is on the runway at Jordan’s King Abdullah II airbase.

There are no medical supplies in the packages, she says, only dried food, rice, flour, and baby formula.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK will help with airdrops – but no British aircraft have been seen in Jordan so far.

He will discuss the matter with US President Donald Trump during talks in Scotland on Monday.

The RAF delivered 110 tonnes of aid across 10 drops last year as part of a Jordanian-led international coalition – but it is not clear what level of support will be offered this time.