France’s Macron opens up about love to autistic interviewers

FILE. French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron attend a national memorial ceremony for Hubert Germain at the Hotel des Invalides, Friday Oct.15, 2021 in Paris. A group of "atypical journalists," on the autism spectrum, got France's 45-year-old president to talk about himself with unusual and illuminating candour in a televised interview this weekend. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP) FILE. French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron attend a national memorial ceremony for Hubert Germain at the Hotel des Invalides, Friday Oct.15, 2021 in Paris. A group of "atypical journalists," on the autism spectrum, got France's 45-year-old president to talk about himself with unusual and illuminating candour in a televised interview this weekend. (Ludovic Marin, Pool Photo via AP)

By JOHN LEICESTER / Associated Press January 9, 2023 3 min read

LE PECQ, France (AP) — The question for France’s president about his teenage romance with a teacher at his high school was so close to the bone, so eye-popping in a country where politicians largely keep their private lives to themselves, that the interviewer couldn’t quite rustle up the courage to ask it.

So he got Emmanuel Macron to pose it to himself.

“He is the president,” the French leader said, reading the question out loud from a piece of paper his interviewer handed to him.

“He should set the example and not marry his teacher.”