Emmanuel Macron and his unusual first lady have gone viral in China

The Western world is gripped by the unfolding drama of the French presidential elections in the wake of the first round of voting.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen will go head to head with Emmanuel Macron in a historic election which excludes the two main parties.

But there are some in China who are gripped by drama of a totally different kind.

Social media users appear fixated on the relationship between Macron (39) and his 64-year-old wife, Brigitte Trogneux, potentially the next First Lady of France.

Macron met his wife when he was 15 and she was his (married) high school teacher.

In fact, he was in the same class as her daughter.

On China's Twitter-equivalent, Weibo, many are comparing the couple with the main characters of a popular Chinese TV drama: 'In the name of the people'.

(Ironically that is actually one of Le Pen's campaign slogans).

The storyline sees a crack squad tackling corruption in government, with villain Qi Tongwei marrying an older woman for power.

The hashtag which translates as "marrying his teacher 24 years his senior," which according to SBS has been seen more than nine million times.

That said, France 24 reports that the comments have been largely favourable towards Macron and his marriage, despite some jokes and a bit of fascination: "I can only say this Frenchman is very romantic."

One commenter wrote:

If a marriage is happy, then age doesn't matter.

H/T:AgenceFrance-Pressevia France24

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