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

Published

2 days ago

May 28, 2025

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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

The fight for the Arctic – where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

Published

13 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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The fight for the Arctic - where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.

Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.

We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.

It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.

Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.

We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.

The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.

“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”

In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.

Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.

“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.

But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.

Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”

Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.

In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.

There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.

“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”

This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.

Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.

World

‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

Published

19 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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'What did they do to be burned and bombed?': Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.

Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing

The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.

“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.

He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.

Israel-Gaza latest: Netanyahu reportedly accepts US ceasefire plan

Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.

“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.

“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.

“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”

Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.

They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.

Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.

“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.

“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”

One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.

His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.

“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”

Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”

The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.

He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.

Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”

Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.