They met at a theatre workshop at Lycée la Providence when Brigitte, then a teacher in her late 30s, ran the after-school drama club and Emmanuel was a 15-year-old student. A romantic relationship developed later despite controversy over their age difference, his parents sent him to Paris to finish school, they reunited after he graduated, Brigitte divorced her first husband in 2006, and they married on 20 October 2007. They have no children together; Brigitte has three children from her previous marriage.
- How they met
- They met at the after-school theatre club at Lycée la Providence in Amiens. Brigitte was running the club and Emmanuel attended as a 15-year-old student and classmate of her daughter.