Early life

Born in Amiens, he is the son of Françoise Macron (née Noguès), a physician, and Jean-Michel
Macron, professor of neurology at the University of Picardy.[1][2] The couple divorced in 2010. Macron
has two siblings, Laurent, born in 1979 and Estelle, born in 1982. Françoise and Jean-Michel's first
child was stillborn.[3]
The Macron family legacy is traced back to the village of Authie in Hauts-de-France.[4] One of
Macron's paternal great-grandfathers, George William Robertson, was English, and was born
in Bristol, United Kingdom.[5][6] His maternal grandparents, Jean and Germaine Noguès (née Arribet),
are from the Pyrenean town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Gascony.[7] Macron commonly
visited Bagnères-de-Bigorre to visit his grandmother Germaine, whom he called "Manette". [8] Macron
associates his enjoyment of reading [9] and his left-ward political leanings to Germaine, who, after
coming from a modest upbringing of a stationmaster father and a housekeeping mother, became a
teacher then a principal, and died in 2013.[10]
Although raised in a non-religious family, Macron was baptized a Roman Catholic by his own
request at age 12; he is agnostic today.[11]
He was educated mainly at the Jesuit institute Lycée la Providence[12] in Amiens[13] before his parents
sent him to finish his last year of school[14] at the elite Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, where he completed
the high school curriculum and the undergraduate program with a "Bac S, Mention Très bien". At the
same time he was nominated for the "Concours Général" (most selective national level high school
competition) in French literature and received his diploma for his piano studies at Amiens
Conservatory.[15] His parents sent him off to Paris due to their alarm at the bond he had formed
with Brigitte Auzière, a married teacher with three children at Jésuites de la Providence, who later
became his wife.[16]
In Paris, he failed to gain entry to the École normale supérieure twice.[17][18][19] He instead studied
philosophy at the University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense, obtaining a DEA degree (a master
level degree, with a thesis on Machiavelli and Hegel).[12][20] Around 1999 Macron worked as an
editorial assistant to Paul Ricoeur, the French Protestant philosopher who was then writing his last
major work, La Mémoire, l'Histoire, l'Oubli. Macron worked mainly on the notes and bibliography. [21]
[22]
 Macron became a member of the editorial board of the literary magazine Esprit.[23]
Macron did not perform national service because he was pursuing his graduate studies. Born in
December 1977, he belonged to the last year when service was mandatory. [24]
Macron obtained a master's degree in public affairs at the Sciences Po, majoring in "Public
Guidance and Economy" before training for a senior civil service career at the selective École
nationale d'administration (ENA), training at an embassy in Nigeria[25] and in an office in Oise before
graduating in 2004.[26]