Brigitte Macron’s daughter has gone public with a relationship with a man 20 years her junior, drawing comparisons with her mother’s marriage to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Tiphaine Auzière, 42, is dating Antoine Lecomte, a 22-year-old competitive kitesurfer and instructor. The pair are understood to have met in Le Touquet, where Mr Lecomte was teaching eFoil, an electric surfboard sport.
Ms Auzière, a lawyer, and Mr Lecomte have since shared details of their relationship on social media, including a video of a two-day van trip to Amsterdam. The footage showed them sightseeing, viewing art and staying at a hotel built inside a former crane at a disused shipyard.
Mr Lecomte said the relationship was serious and rejected suggestions that it was simply a summer romance.
“It’s not a summer fling. It’s love, it’s serious. We have plans for the future,” he said.
He added: “Age means nothing when you are in love. Tiphaine may be 20 years older but she is fun, exciting and full of joie de vivre.”
The couple are said to have met after Ms Auzière attended several of Mr Lecomte’s eFoil lessons. He said he did not initially realise she was Brigitte Macron’s daughter.
“She came for some efoil lessons at the beginning of the summer, we got on and she came back a few times and then we met up at a party I was invited to,” he said.
“But I had no idea she was Brigitte Macron’s daughter until later; it doesn’t bother me, we get on really well and that is the most important thing, we make each other happy.”
The Macron family connection
The relationship has prompted comparisons with the romance between Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte, who was his drama teacher when he was a teenager. Mr Macron was 15 when he met her; she was a married mother of three and the eldest of her children was in his class.
His parents removed him from the Catholic school in Amiens after the relationship came to light. Mr Macron later married Brigitte when he was 29 and she was 54, becoming stepfather to her three children.
Ms Auzière has previously spoken about the impact of her mother’s relationship on her childhood, saying it “forged my temperament and gave me strength”. She said she had learnt to live with the attention “and independently of it”.
In another interview, she described her mother and stepfather’s relationship by saying: “If I have to give a vision of love, it’s Emmanuel and Mummy. When they are together, it is almost as if the world doesn’t exist.”
She has also defended her mother against criticism of the couple’s age gap, describing such attacks as sexist and ageist and arguing that they would not be directed at male politicians in similar circumstances.
Ms Auzière’s new relationship follows her separation from French television host Cyril Hanouna in May 2026. She was previously in a civil partnership with gastroenterologist and hepatologist Antoine Choteau, before they separated in early 2025.
A friend told French magazine Gala that Ms Auzière and Mr Lecomte had “a lot in common”, including their love of Le Touquet, travel, thrills and entrepreneurship.
Another friend said Ms Auzière was like her mother because she “follows her heart and doesn’t care what other people think”.
Mr Lecomte is studying at NEOMA Business School and founded the company Mission Kiteboarding. He is developing the business in Asia, where Ms Auzière is expected to accompany him.
She has reportedly introduced him to her two children, Élise, 12, and Aurèle, ten. Brigitte Macron is said to be pleased by the relationship, with a source claiming that her daughter’s happiness was what mattered most to her.
Mr Lecomte said people in Le Touquet treated the couple normally despite their age difference.
“We laugh a lot together and we help each other, and enjoy time together,” he said.
