EMMANUEL Macron’s step-daughter said she suffered when her mum began a “forbidden relationship” with the future French President.

He was a schoolboy of 15 when he met teacher Brigitte Trogneux, 24 years his senior.

Tiphaine Auziere, then aged ten, said she and her two siblings faced town gossip as Macron was seen visiting her mum at home in Amiens.

She said: ‘The attacks, the backbiting, the judgments.

“It was not yet the era of social networks, but we were in a small provincial town.

“Everything is known.

“Despite all this, they stood tall.”

Lawyer Tiphaine, 40, told Paris Match she “learned a lot about human nature” from the experience.

She also said she had been wounded by false claims on social media that Brigitte, now 70, was born male.

“I have concerns about the level of society when I hear what is circulating on social networks about my mother being a man,” she said.

“The confidence with which it is said, and the credibility given to it is proclaimed.

“How can we resist disinformation on social networks?”