Why Brigitte Macron is the most loved French first lady for years
Supportive yet discreet, strong but without ambition, the president’s wife is a huge hit in a country which reveres alluring older women
From a very young age, Brigitte Macron, née Trogneux, must have seen people beaming at her whenever she mentioned her family business: they were chocolatiers. Children of French pâtissiers and boulangers also know this feeling of gourmand envy and admiration. At my school in Paris in the 1980s, those kids were always the most popular, far more sought after than the children of aristocrats with châteaux in the country.
Perhaps it is thanks to this auspicious beginning in life, then, that Macron, 65, seems to have retained a sunny disposition. We have yet to see a picture of her looking brooding or angry, no small feat for someone constantly scrutinised by the celebrity press in search of new wrinkles, signs
