Emmanuel Macron met his wife in high school . . . when she was his teacher.

[pnwmom]

Yes, they have a very different culture there. But did you know that Newt Gingrich also married his high school teacher? I don't remember hearing that before.

http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-2017/meet-brigitte-macron-french-president-elects-wife-fd.html?intcmp=AE-HP-TREND1-FD

Les Francaises, they are not like us. French President-elect Emanuel Macron is married to a woman 24 years his senior, 64-year-old Brigitte Trogneux Macron. She used to be his (married) high school drama teacher. Her oldest daughter was one of young Macron’s classmates.

And in France, this is not that big a deal.

American politicians have been known to have large age gaps in their marriages: First lady Melania Trump, who is 47, is nearly 24 years younger than her husband.

American politicians have even married their teachers: The first wife of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Jackie, was his high school math teacher. When they wed, he was 19 and she was 26.

SNIP

[RedWedge]

1. Not only did Gingrich marry his teacher, he later divorced her when she was recovering from

cancer surgery, and then married his second wife six months later. After she helped him out of debt, he started cheating on her with his current wife. Classy!

[pnwmom]

2. That part I do remember. Yeah he's a creep. nt

[2naSalit]

4. When I was in college...

one of my political science profs showed us a documentary on sNewtie's childhood with extensive focus on his mother's recollections... even she figured out he was an overbearing asshole when he was a child. Nothing that woman tried to do to control him worked, she did not have nice things to say about him.

[LeftyMom]

5. If I recall correctly he fell in love with the third Mrs. G when he saw her in Mars Attacks

[HAB911]

14. +++++

[TheBlackAdder]

19. Wasn't she also in Killer Clowns from Outer Space?

[bullwinkle428]

20. Exactly - how Newtie-Boy ended that first marriage is far more

noteworthy to me, regarding his character as a human being.

[Abu Pepe]

3. local teacher just got indicted for that

Only the kid she fucked was older than Macron was.

[2naSalit]

6. and your point would be..?

[Abu Pepe]

7. no point. just a topical​ observation. nt

[2naSalit]

8. Right.

[Abu Pepe]

9. ok what is my point then?

I would love to know. It has actually been a big story in this little town.

[LanternWaste]

25. A topical observation holding what relevance?

A topical observation holding what relevance?

[Abu Pepe]

26. that's what topical means. nt

[GliderGuider]

10. He married her when he was 29, after a 10-year romance.

French President-Elect Emmanuel Macron’s Wife Is The Anti-Melania Trump

Then she met Macron, a 15-year-old student at La Providence, a private Jesuit high school, where she was directing a play he appeared in. It is unclear as to when their relationship officially began, but the teenage Macron is rumored to have been smitten with Trogneux, who is 24 years his senior, almost from the get-go. Indeed, when he left La Providence to study at the elite Lycée Henri IV in Paris, he made a declaration fit for a romantic melodrama.

“You will not get rid of me,” the 17-year-old Macron told the married mother of three. I will come back and I will marry you.”

True to his word, Macron eventually married Trogneux in 2007, following a 10-year romance.

“Love took everything in its path and led me to divorce,” Trogneux told Paris Match last year. “It was impossible to resist him.”

He is the anti-Donald, she is the anti-Melania. I look forward to seeing more of them on the world stage. I bet he'd get along famously with Justin Trudeau. Probably somewhat less well with Grabito Pussolini.

[treestar]

13. So it does not seem that the relationship

began until he was 19. No reason to assume it began when he was 15.

Though how a woman of 43 can find a 19 year old attractive is another mystery. He must have been an exceptional teenager.

[LisaL]

16. Nobody would say that it's a mystery why a 43 year old man would find a 19 year old woman attractive

[treestar]

17. True

I have no experience with being a man. So as a woman is all I can speak of - I remember being a 19-year-old girl, and a 43-year-old man would have been way too old to be attractive to me then. I remember being a 43-year-old woman and a teen-aged male would have been too young for that. But it is true sexist men are known for thinking of women as objects and the younger the object, the better for them (though it would be hard to have much in common).

[former9thward]

21. The relationship clearly began when he was 15.

I don't think you would be so understanding if a 43 year old male high school teacher claimed he just started having sex with his former student at 19. Everyone would cry 'BS' and you know it. I don't care when they started their relationship but the hypocrisy is rampant.

[treestar]

22. Can we tell though?

His parents moved him to get him to forget about it and he was 17 telling her he was going to marry her someday. So we don't know what she did - so far there is no proof she did wrong. He may have had a crush on the teacher. It's just so odd that it worked out in the long run.

But there's not enough there to claim there is anything to "understand" from her point of view. She might have been telling him to get lost.

The "romance" is said to be started when he was 19. See someone's post below.

[marybourg]

28. No. That's when he was in charge of his own life and "courted" her openly.

When he was 15, his parents were aware of their relationship-whatever it was at that time -and sent him away to Paris to separate them.

[Vermijelli]

11. Laissez-faire attitudes towards monogamy is one thing

Teachers getting involved with high school students is another. There's a very unequal power dynamic between a teacher and student, not to mention between adult and adolescent. At a minimum, it's deeply unprofessional and likely disruptive to the learning of the student and perhaps to that of other students.

She also ignored the parents when they asked her to stop contact with him until he turned 18.

[JI7]

12. Macron's parents did not approve and send him away to get him away from her

but they still ended up together .

[LisaL]

18. I am pretty sure most parents wouldn't have approved of the situation.

[LeftyMom]

23. I have a son that age. If a grown woman was making eyes at him she'd go missing.

[eissa]

24. Absolutely

I don't know why we give women a pass when they are the adults in pedophilic relationships. He was a minor; whether they had sex or not, it's clear there was a relationship when he was as young as 15, which I find just as disturbing as if it had been a male teacher with his female student. This isn't about the age gap, it's about adults taking advantage of children.

[OnDoutside]

15. Fun fact : About the same Age difference here, as between the Trumps.

[Thomas Hurt]

27. My High School Social Studies teacher married one of his students...

after she finished college returned to my home town.

[WinkyDink]

29. Yes, well. Water over the dam, and they are still together, so what was "right"?