French elections

Sex and the French Elections

The cover of Paris Match magazine late last year featured a handsome, 30-something man strolling arm in arm with an attractive blond woman in her 60s. The same couple were on the cover of a summer issue, holding hands at the beach, and on a spring edition dressed up for a state dinner.

As France gears up for presidential elections in April (and probably a runoff in May), this unusual pair could help prevent it from becoming the next country to succumb to xenophobic populism. He’s the upstart presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, and she’s his former high school French teacher, Brigitte Trogneux, now his close adviser and wife.