The youngest daughter of France’s new first lady has accused political opponents of “jealousy” for launching what she called misogynistic attacks on Brigitte Macron.
Tiphaine Auzière, who is standing as a parliamentary candidate for Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche, has defended her mother from what she believes are ageist and sexist insults.
Interviewed before Sunday’s presidential inauguration, the 32-year-old lawyer told the French television channel BFMTV: “I think we cannot remain indifferent to this, and now I do not want to give any importance to people who convey this kind of stuff, because I find it totally outrageous in France in the 21st century to make such attacks.
“These are attacks that we wouldn’t direct at male politicians or at a man who would accompany a female politician. So I think there’s a lot of jealousy, and that this is very inappropriate.”
Auzière added: “On the ground, on the contrary, I meet people who admire what she does, her work, her involvement. If people have nothing else to do but criticise, let them do it, it will only bring us closer together.”
Brigitte Macron, like her husband, was brought up in Amiens, where her family owned a chocolate-making business. She has three children – a son and two daughters – from her first marriage to banker Andre Louis Auzière. One is a lawyer, one a cardiologist and the other an engineer.
She left Auzière in 2006 and married Macron, whom she had met when she was his high school drama teacher, a year later.
The couple moved to Paris where Macron continued his studies and she worked as a teacher. The couple have kept a home in Le Touquet on the coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France.