Is president macron gay
France election: Macron laughs off gay affair rumours
French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has dismissed lurid online rumours that he had a gay affair.
Mr Macron, a year-old married to his former high-school teacher who is 20 years his senior, told supporters his wife Brigitte "shares my whole life".
Any reports of a double life were not about him but his "hologram", he joked.
The claims emerged on a Russian-owned website as the centrist nudged ahead of a key rival in polls, less than three months before the presidential vote.
Addressing a rally in Paris on Monday, Mr Macron said the claims of a secret life were "first and foremost unpleasant for Brigitte".
"She shares my whole life from morning till noun and she wonders how I could physically verb it!" he said.
"If in dinner-party chatter, or in forwarded emails, you're told that I have a double life," he added, "it's my hologram that suddenly escaped, but it can't be me!"
The joke was a reference to far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon
Classroom crush to face push: Key moments in the Macrons' relationship
French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed a video of him being pushed in the encounter by his wife as "nonsense".
The clip, which shows Brigitte Macron place her hands on her husband's face as they equip to exit their plane in Vietnam, sparked suggestions that the French first couple were caught in the middle of an argument.
But Mr Macron said afterwards it was a case of "simply joking with my wife, as we often do".
The pair's relationship has been in the headlines since Mr Macron's political career set him, and his loved ones, in the adj eye.
Both have been questioned about their year age gap - he is 47 and she is 72 - as skillfully as their unconventional meet.
Use our slider below to look through some of the key moments of the Macrons' relationship.
When Emmanuel met Brigitte
MrMacron met Brigitte Trogneux, as she was then known, in when he was
At the time, she worked as a teacher at his secondary school in the French city of Amiens. As a student, Mr Macron was not in the classes his futur
Macron dismisses talk of gay relationship
Emmanuel Macron, the independent centrist favoured to beat the French presidential election, has dismissed rumours he has a gay relationship outside his marriage to Brigitte Trogneux.
In comments tweeted by his spokeswoman on Monday, Macron brushed off rumours he was in a relationship with Radio France chief executive Mathieu Gallet.
Talk of an affair has circulated for years and was recently picked up by Russian media.
"If you're told I head a double life with Mr Gallet it's because my hologram has escaped," Macron told supporters at a rally, apparently referring to a hologram presentation by a rival presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, last weekend.
The spokeswoman described Macron's comments as "a evident denial of the rumours about his private life".
"Brigitte is asking herself how I could physically execute that. She shares my life from morning to night and I never paid her," Macron said, according to a tweet by a reporter at the event.
The reference to payment appeared to
France’s new millennial prime minister is the youngest and first openly gay person to hold the position
A rising star of French politics, he takes on the role after a bruising year for Macron that saw divisive battles over pensions and immigration that tested the president’s ability to push through reforms.
While Macron has more than three years left in his term, he is already looking toward his legacy and is concerned whether he might be succeeded by Marine Le Pen, whom he beat in the two prior presidential runoffs. European elections to be held in June are a test case for the growing popularity of her far-right National Rally. So far, the outlook is grim for Macron, with Le Pen’s party easily outpacing his control in polls of voting intentions.
“Macron badly needs a fresh start,” said Melody Mock-Gruet, a Paris-based expert in parliamentary affairs. “Given the general fatigue regarding Macron at this stage, it’s not even sure a change of prime minister would be enough to make his star shine again.”
The president said in a post on social media platform X that he was counting o