The scandal over the married French leader, 40, has rocked France after claims emerged he got Mathieu Gallet, 41 fired as chairman of Radio France by the Higher Audiovisual Council, the French broadcasting authority.
Mr Gallet was officially dismissed after being found guilty of corruption and fined £17,500 for giving a €400,000 contract to a friend who had his own consultancy.
However, a former French minister claimed that he had really been fired to hush the persistent rumours that he had been embroiled in an affair with the leader of France.
Fredric Mitterrand, the former culture minister in Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, and nephew of the later French President Francois Mitterrand said that talk of the affair “played against” Mr Macron.
He said: “He had become irksome. I think it’s a political revocation. There’s a strong suspicion. I think this totally false rumour … exasperated the president.”
Mr Macron has been married to his much older wife Brigitte, 64, since 2007. The unusual pairing turned heads as there is a 24-year age gap between the couple.
The pair met when he was a teenager and she was his teacher. He defied his own parents’ disapproval to marry the educator after he fell in love with her while taking part in a school play.
But, in France, during the election campaign, there was as much talk about his marriage as there was about rumours that a paparazzi photographer had got salacious pictures of Mr Macron with Mr Gallet in a forest.
The rumours got so much attention that Mr Macron was forced to come out and deny them.
He said: “Brigitte shares my life from morning to night. And I don’t get paid for that!
“If in dinners in town, people tell you that I lead a double life with Matthieu Gallet, it must be my hologram who escaped, it can’t be me.”
The compromising pictures have never been seen by anyone who can confirm their legitimacy, and there is nothing to suggest that they truly exist. But that has not stopped speculation that the images are out there.
Mr Gallet, has stayed mostly silent on the matter, only claiming that he has been the victim of an underhand political plot to oust him, The Telegraph reports.
However, Benjamin Griveaux, the government spokesman, denied that ministers had intervened to oust Mr Gallet.
The radio host’s lawyers have said that they will appeal the ruling as he is “presumed innocent.”