Brigitte Macron’s Daughter’s 22-Yr-Previous Associate Tells All

Households usually attain for the outdated line that the apple by no means falls removed from the tree. Within the case of Tiphaine Auzière and her mom, France’s First Woman Brigitte Macron, the comparability is tough to overlook.

Sharp, confident and politically engaged, Tiphaine has campaigned for her stepfather Emmanuel Macron and has additionally put herself earlier than voters as a candidate. Like her mom, she has by no means appeared content material to dwell in another person’s shadow.

Brigitte Macron, now 73, has lengthy been seen as something however retiring. Her youngest daughter, 42, seems reduce from comparable fabric: a seasoned lawyer, a loyal defender of each her mom and her stepfather, and notably shut in age to the French president, who is simply six years older than she is.

The resemblance shouldn’t be solely a matter of temperament. Mom and daughter share blonde hair, a youthful look, slim frames and the identical brilliant, unmistakable smile.

This week, nonetheless, the parallels between them appeared much more pronounced, with a brand new romance suggesting that household historical past could also be echoing in sudden style.

Brigitte is 24 years older than Emmanuel Macron, whom she met when he was a 15-year-old schoolboy and she or he was his 40-year-old trainer, Brigitte Trogneux. Now Tiphaine is alleged to have fallen for a kitesurfer roughly 20 years her junior.

The person in query is Antoine Lecomte, a twenty-something rising identify in kitesurfing. Past his sporting profile, he studied at an elite enterprise faculty and has not too long ago based an organization producing high-end kites for surfers within the sought-after French seaside city of Le Touquet.

In Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, because the stylish resort is formally recognized, Antoine appeared, maybe unsurprisingly, très content material when Our Information Outlet encountered him this week after he got here ashore from a vigorous five-hour coaching session on the water.

Carrying a full wetsuit, coated in sand and brandishing a sail, the 22-year-old grinned as he admitted: ‘I can recognize why individuals are as a result of our relationship is similar to that of her mom, Brigitte, and President Macron.’

Nevertheless it was solely after checking in with Tiphaine that he agreed to talk additional, stressing: ‘It’s not a summer time fling. It’s love, it’s severe. We now have plans for the long run.

‘I do know lots of people in Le Touquet and they’re all joyful for us,’ he added.

‘They are saying if we’re joyful then they’re joyful. Age means nothing when you’re in love.

‘Tiphaine could also be 20 years older however she is enjoyable, thrilling and stuffed with joie de vivre.’

There was most undoubtedly a definite joie de vivre concerning the couple’s determination to go public with their blossoming romance on Instagram earlier this week.

They every shared the identical video compilation, captioned with Gallic insouciance by Antoine ‘48h in ’Dam with Madam’.

The collection of clips present Antoine, who’s initially from Lille however moved to Le Touquet after spending summer time holidays there as a toddler, and Tiphaine within the Dutch metropolis of Amsterdam the place they spent a loved-up lengthy weekend final month.

The opening picture is of the enticing couple cheek to cheek in a buying centre, earlier than the reel rolls via road-trip photos in his white VW Campervan. Tiphaine reclines on the mattress whereas Antoine is on the wheel.

Then they’re seen checking into the unique Faralda Lodge, which is constructed right into a 50-metre-high dockside crane.

Rooms begin at £900 for the night time and the three suites – named Free Spirit, Secret and Mystique – can be found to e-book by ‘request and invitation solely’. There was extra cosy footage of the couple strolling round Amsterdam, visiting galleries.

If the age hole has raised any eyebrows, it’s not fazing both mother-of-two Tiphaine, who separated from former accomplice, gastroenterologist and hepatologist Antoine Choteau in January 2025, or Antoine, who tells Our Information Outlet he has had two earlier relationships.

The dashing younger businessman (he was out testing sails for his fledgling firm, Mission Kiteboarding, when Our Information Outlet spoke to him), admits he didn’t really know who Tiphaine was when she got here to him for efoil browsing classes in the beginning of the summer time.

An efoil is an electrically powered hydrofoil surfboard that permits the surfer to glide easily throughout the highest of the water and Antoine is supervisor of Le Touquet’s efoil surf faculty, a enterprise he oversees from a kiosk overlooking an estuary the place Tiphaine posted {a photograph} of herself in a wetsuit, unzipped to disclose her again, in June this yr.

‘La future James Bond woman,’ quipped one follower. If the hanging Tiphaine is a Bond woman, then Antoine is actually channelling James Bond in video footage from final summer time that reveals him, in a go well with, using his board throughout the water to a close-by restaurant, carrying a silver platter of seafood to a ready diner.

With reference to his new amour, Antoine says: ‘She got here for some efoil classes in the beginning of the summer time, we bought on and she or he got here again a couple of instances after which we met up at a celebration I used to be invited to.

‘However I had no concept she was Brigitte Macron’s daughter till later; it doesn’t trouble me, we get on very well and that’s the most essential factor, we make one another joyful.’

Antoine confessed he has been ‘studying all about us’ since information of the connection went public at the beginning of the week however insisted that discovering Tiphaine’s background didn’t ‘change something between us’.

He added: ‘Like I mentioned it’s very severe, it’s not a summer time relationship we now have a number of plans collectively. We’re going to Asia in a couple of weeks on enterprise.

‘She [Tiphaine] is a lawyer, and I’ve to develop my manufacturing facility in Sri Lanka so she’s going to assist me, and we’ll go collectively. I’m hoping the enterprise will get stronger.’

He feels like a younger man who is aware of what he desires, a trait that makes him greater than a little bit like his new girlfriend’s stepfather.

Emmanuel Macron first met his spouse in 1992 when he was a teenage pupil on the Windfall Catholic faculty in Amiens, north of Paris, the place she taught drama.She was a married mother-of-three and he was in the identical class as her eldest daughter Laurence – who’s now a heart specialist. The pair went on to rewrite a play collectively, which they later admitted was the interval once they fell in love. On the time, Emmanuel was simply 16.

In an interview with Paris Match, Brigitte confided: ‘I might really feel I used to be falling, he was too…’ earlier than including: ‘At 17, Emmanuel informed me, “No matter you do, I’ll marry you!” Love took every part in its passage and led me to divorce. It was inconceivable to withstand him.’

She acknowledged how tough the state of affairs should have been for her youngsters, saying: ‘You may think about what they had been listening to. However I didn’t need to miss out on my life.’

She didn’t divorce her first husband till 2006, marrying her former scholar a yr later, by which era he was a civil servant in his late twenties.

He requested his soon-to-be stepchildren for his or her permission.

The placement of the marriage? Le Touquet, on the similar city corridor the place Brigitte married her first husband, Andre-Louis Auziere. She was 54; her groom, 29. A videotape of Macron’s speech at their wedding ceremony reception reveals him paying tribute to Tiphaine and her siblings, brother Sebastien and sister Laurence.

‘I need to thanks for accepting us and loving us as we’re. Particularly I need to thank Brigitte’s youngsters,’ he mentioned. ‘If there’s anybody for whom this might not have been easy, it’s them.’

Curiously, Brigitte’s youngsters don’t seem to have been troubled by the connection, certainly Tiphaine has lengthy spoken of her admiration for her mom and stepfather, who’ve lengthy had a vacation house in Le Touquet (they not too long ago offered one and are thought to have purchased one other).

‘If I’ve to offer a imaginative and prescient of affection, it’s Emmanuel and Mummy,’ mentioned Tiphaine, talking in a 2018 documentary. ‘When they’re collectively, it’s virtually as if the world doesn’t exist.’

She returned to the topic of her mom’s second marriage in 2024, saying: ‘A household break-up will be each a heartbreak and a chance. Mixing households collectively will be enriching.

‘I’ve an adored mom and stepfather.’ She’s campaigned for her stepfather, who she as soon as described as ‘distinctive, sensible. He’s somebody with a long-term imaginative and prescient of society.’

Tiphaine, who works in Paris however lives close to to Le Touquet, has additionally been fiercely protecting of her mom amid the quite a few barbs and assaults thrown her method, about her age, her relationship along with her husband and even preposterous claims that she was born a person.

‘I discover it abhorrent in France within the twenty first century such assaults [happen], which might not be carried out in opposition to a male politician or a male companion of a feminine politician. There’s a number of jealousy,’ mentioned Tiphaine after a volley of abuse in 2017.

She was additionally her mom’s staunch defender when on-line conspiracy theorists confronted a French courtroom final yr, telling the courtroom: ‘She’s not elected, she has not sought something, and she or he is completely subjected to those assaults. I – as a daughter, a girl and a mom – wouldn’t want her life on anybody.’

Antoine is known to have already met Tiphaine’s daughters Élise, 12, and Aurèle, ten, and a gathering with Brigitte is rumoured to be on the playing cards.

In the meantime, their fledgling relationship has the blessing of Antoine’s mother and father too.

‘My mother and father know. They haven’t met Tiphaine but however they’re joyful. We anticipate a number of consideration now however Tiphaine shouldn’t be my first girlfriend, I’ve had two relationships earlier than,’ says Antoine.

‘Persons are not bothered about us and the age hole, they deal with us usually however we chuckle lots collectively and we assist one another, and revel in time collectively, she is in Paris now however we’ll see one another quickly.’

It is just once we enterprise to ask him what specifically he finds so enticing about his blonde-haired older lover that Antoine demurs.

With a gentlemanly flourish, he smiles. ‘Now you’re asking an excessive amount of, I can’t inform you every part about us however I’ll inform you we’re joyful and in love.

‘I can’t say the rest as a result of she requested me to not say an excessive amount of.’