Emmanuel Macron, who was recently elected President of France, claimed homophobia and misogyny are to blame for the public and media's obsession with his wife, who is 24 years his senior.

He told Le Parisien about how people had invented "parallel lives" for him, and speculated about his sexuality.

Mr Macron also claimed that no one would question it if his wife was 20 years his junior.

“If I had been 20 years older than my wife, nobody would have thought for a single second that I couldn’t be [an intimate partner],” he said.