Emmanuel Macron attacks 'misogynistic and homophobic' rumours he is secretly gay

Mr Macron, 39, met his wife Brigitte, 64, when he was a 15-year-old schoolboy and she was a married mother-of-three.

Reuters/Philippe WojazerBrigitte Trogneux, wife of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, speaks with media outside her house in Le Touquet, France.

Throughout Macron's presidential campaign there has been much written about his marriage, as Brigitte is 24 years his senior.

Trogneux went from being Macron's teacher to his partner, and eventually his wife.

As First Lady, Trogneux will assume a powerful role that Macron's aides compare to that of U.S. former first lady Michelle Obama during her time in the White House. "You can not work well if you are not happy", Macron said in his last staff meeting after he resigned from the Hollande government in August 2016.

During Macron's campaign, he announced that he wanted the position of First Lady, which has no official status in France, to be defined and codified.

Speaking at an event on March 8, International Women's Day, he said that Brigitte would "not be in the background, not hidden", adding: "She'll be at my side, because she's always been at my side".

"She will have an existence, she will have a voice there, a view on things. If I cope, it's because you're there".

As rumours started to fly about the relationship, Macron left Amiens to complete his past year of high school at the prestigious Lycee Henri IV in Paris.

They became close while adapting theatre scripts together.

The couple divorced in 2006 and in October 2007 Brigitte married Mr Macron, who at the time was working as an inspecteur des finances, a job he then left to work in Rothschild & Cie bank, before going into politics. Brigitte hails from a family of chocolatiers and was relatively well-off, according to The Telegraph.

This is certainly an opportunity for her, who at 40 started again from the scratch with three kids and a much younger husband.

"If I am elected-no, sorry, when we are elected-she will be there, with a role and a place".

Within the documentary, "Behind the Scenes of a Victory", Mrs Macron is filmed telling her younger husband off for eating chocolate and for swearing at the television as he watched his favourite football team. She helped in preparing his speeches, managing his schedule, and giving him advice on public presentation. "It was impossible to resist him", Trogneux told Paris Match magazine in 2016.

However Le Monde said: "She knows that few president's wives have been happy and that couples rarely survive at the Elysée".