Daughter slams critics of new French First Lady

The daughter of France's new First Lady Brigitte Trogneux has slammed the critics who have attacked the 24-year age gap between her and husband President-elect Emmanuel Macron, the media reported.

Tiphaine Auziere, 32, on Saturday said "jealousy" was behind the "abhorrent" attacks targeting her 64-year-old mother's relationship with Macron, 39, who will be sworn-in as the nation's 25th President on Sunday following his landslide 66 per cent presidential election win against far-Right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen, The Daily Mail reported.

Auziere, a lawyer by profession, told BFMTV: "I don't want to give credence to people who do this kind of thing."

"I find abhorrent in France in the 21st century such attacks, which would not be carried out against a male politician or a male companion of a female politician."

"There's a lot of jealousy," she added.

Trogneux and Macron's romance started after they when the President-elect starred in one of her plays at the Jesuit school Lycee La Providence, Amiens, northern France.

Macron also shared a class at a Catholic school with one of Trogneux's two daughters Laurence - who is also 39.

The couple also went on to write a play together, which they later admitted was the period when they fell in love. At the time, Macron was just 16, reports The Daily Mail.

Trogneux a mother-of-three, from a renowned family in the town of Amiens, later left her banker husband Andre-Louis Auziere for Macron.

Before the election, Macron broached the abuse targeted at his wife, saying she was the victim of "everyday misogyny".

"If I were 20 years older than my wife, nobody would have thought for a single second that I couldn't be an intimate partner," he had told the Le Parisien daily.

Trogneux, now a grandmother of eight, is also expected to play an active role in the new government.

--IANS

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