French President Emmanuel Macron is the direct descendant of a British First World War hero, reports The Daily Mirror.
Bristol-born shopkeeper George William Robertson, who had three secret children across the Channel, is the President’s great-grandfather.
The middle daughter Jacqueline went on to marry into the Macron family in northern France.
George, born in 1887, was a soldier who received a medal fighting in the Battle of the Somme, near where Macron’s ancestors originated in France.
We have also unearthed the first known photograph of George, taken in London in the 1940s after his return to the UK.
It means 39-year-old Macron – who swept to power in May – is technically one eighth British.
Until now, France’s youngest ever leader was unaware of the real identity of his British ancestor, who was apparently not revealed by his grandmother Jacqueline.
Our extensive archive research in France and Britain has established that, after the Armistice in 1918, George stayed on in France and married a local woman, Suzanne Julia Amelie Leblond.
Following the wedding in Abbeville in 1919, George worked for Suzanne’s parents at their hotel in Amiens, northern France.They then settled down and had three daughters.
Jacqueline was born in June 1922 in the city . George, a butcher before the war, then apparently left his young family in France.
He and Suzanne divorced in 1928, when Jacqueline was only six. All three daughters, Simone, Jacqueline and Odette were all under eight years.
George then moved to the suburbs of Paris, and reportedly worked for the American perfume and cosmetics brand Elizabeth Arden.
Unable to settle down, however, George returned to Britain, eventually settling in Forest Gate, East London.
According to the official certificates we have obtained, the shopkeeper had cut his ties with his French family, which is why President Macron knew little about his great-grandfather.
In London, George met widow Elizabeth Luckin. They married in December 1936 in the local register office. Both were 48. The wedding certificate states George was divorced.
George and Elizabeth ran a grocer’s in Forest Gate, now a house. Living with them were Elizabeth’s daughter, Vera, from her first marriage, Vera’s husband, Michael, and later their daughters Janet and Marilyn.