The woman, a law student, is understood to have sent the messages over a period of several months, starting in September.

She was arrested on Thursday at her home in Montpellier for sending “repeated malicious messages aimed at disturbing the peace of others”, Midi Libre reports.

The messages, in which she referred to Macron as her “love” and which included erotic photos of herself, were reportedly sent to the minister's personal email address.

The woman will now have to take a psychiatric exam, which according to Midi Libre aims to ascertain if her infatuation is down to “a passing distraction or a more worrying obsession”. Depending on the results, she is then likely to be tried for harassment.

“There were also photos of her – of which we won’t go into the details,” a judiciary source told the newspaper, adding “we can't tolerate a public person being harassed by emails.”

The 38-year-old politician, who has been in a relationship with his former French teacher for twenty years, only reported the harassment to police in February.

It is thought that the woman discovered Macron’s personal email address after a conference for Internet entrepreneurs, when he invited participants to sent him suggestions for startups via Gmail.