Paris
CNN
—
A quick shove. A split-second clip that would have dominated US news for days aired in France for just 24 hours and then it was gone.
When a viral video appeared over the weekend showing French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, pushing his face just as he was about to deplane during a visit to Vietnam, not a single French newspaper front page featured it the next morning.
Was it because Prime Minister François Bayrou was speaking about the financial efforts the French would have to make under his soon-to-be-unveiled budget? Or that people were detained recently in a string of crypto kidnappings?
More likely, it highlighted a cultural divide between France and the Anglosphere – a long-standing French belief that politicians’ private lives should be protected.
This secret-keeping tradition kept President François Mitterrand’s illegitimate daughter hidden for years. It has also meant a delicate silence around other controversial personal lives, like Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s notorious womanizing.
The former International Monetary Fund chief’s arrest on sexual assault charges in New York in 2011 abruptly ended his political career just as he was emerging as a leading presidential contender.
The same unwritten rules surfaced in 2014, when Closer magazine published photos of former President François Hollande – disguised by a motorcycle helmet – arriving at the apartment of a friend, where he was reportedly meeting actress Julie Gayet.
At the time, Gayet was his girlfriend, even though he still had a live-in partner, Valérie Trierweiler.
The story caused a stir, but Hollande’s office condemned the “invasion of privacy,” and the media soon backed off.
At a press conference, Hollande faced only one question about his personal life and deflected it with the remark, “private affairs are dealt with in private,” silencing the throng of French journalists and leaving foreign reporters stunned.
So when the video of the Macrons began circulating, the initial media response was swift but short-lived. French outlets played the clip on loop, dissected it briefly, and moved on.
But that core rule is now being tested.
“Over time, these kinds of personal stories have become far more difficult to contain than they were 30 or even 20 years ago,” said Thierry Arnaud, an international correspondent and veteran journalist at BFMTV.
“It’s true we didn’t make a big deal of it, but it’s deeply embarrassing for Macron. You’re intruding on a couple’s intimate moment and it’s uncomfortable, both for him and for those watching.”
Macron’s relationship with Brigitte was always unconventional. They met when he was just 15, and she was his drama teacher at a private school in Amiens. She was 24 years older, married, and a mother of three.
What began as mentorship grew into something deeper, and by the time Macron graduated, he had vowed to one day marry her. “Whatever you do, I will marry you,” he reportedly told her as a teenager.
Their story was used as campaign material in 2017, they made a point of making their relationship public, posing in glossy French magazines and describing their marriage as a celebration of an atypical but loving modern family. Any critics were labeled misogynists.
“It was completely a badge of honor at first, a special kind of glamour that added to his (Macron’s) image of being daring both politically and personally. He fell in love with his teacher as a teenager and pursued it, come what may. Over time, that picture has eroded,” Arnaud said.
After the Vietnam shoving incident, the couple publicly displayed unity that very evening, walking hand in hand through the streets of Hanoi in a clear effort to quell any rumors of domestic discord.
But the line between public and private is blurring. Traditionally, the Élysée Palace has maintained a strict policy of never commenting on rumors or politicians’ personal lives. However, with the rise of social media and disinformation campaigns they are being dragged into these personal controversies, challenging that long-held stance.
In March, conservative commentator Candace Owens revived an absurd conspiracy theory with a YouTube video titled “Is France’s First Lady a Man?”
Promoted widely on X, Owens called it “likely the biggest scandal in political history.” Since then, Owens has produced numerous videos about Brigitte Macron for her 4 million YouTube subscribers, including a multi-part series called Becoming Brigitte.
Although the claims are completely baseless and Brigitte Macron has successfully sued two French women for spreading them it has elicited a response from the president.
At a Paris event in March 2024, Macron addressed the rumor head-on saying that the worst part of being a president is having to deal with “the false information and fabricated stories.”
“People end up believing them, and it disrupts your life, even in your most private moments,” Macron said.
His words now feel prophetic, with the world speculating on a deeply intimate exchange we may never be let into.
