A Paris criminal court found ten defendants guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron for spreading false and degrading claims online about her gender and personal life.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A Paris court on Monday convicted ten people of cyberbullying France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, over a sustained online campaign that promoted claims questioning her gender and sexuality, including allegations that she was born a man.
The defendants were sentenced to penalties ranging from mandatory cyberbullying awareness training to suspended prison terms of up to eight months, according to reporting by France24. In its ruling, the court described the posts as “particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious,” noting that they promoted unfounded claims of transgender identity and insinuations of pedocriminality directed at the first lady.
The case involved eight men and two women between the ages of 41 and 65 who were accused of posting “numerous malicious comments” online. The posts falsely alleged that the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron was born a man and linked the couple’s 24-year age difference to paedophilia. Some of the content circulated widely on social media and was viewed tens of thousands of times.
Brigitte Macron did not attend the two-day trial held in October. Speaking in an interview broadcast Sunday on TF1, she said she initiated the legal action to “set an example” in the broader fight against online harassment, according to AP.
Her daughter, Tiphaine Auzière, testified in court about the toll the harassment had taken on her mother and the wider family. “She cannot ignore the horrible things said about her,” Auzière told the court, adding that the impact extended to the president’s grandchildren as the abuse intensified, AP reported.
The ruling is the latest in a series of legal actions taken by the Macrons to counter persistent rumors about the first lady’s gender. In 2022, Brigitte Macron filed a formal complaint for public defamation in France against freelance journalist Natacha Rey and self-described “medium” Amandine Roy, according to Le Parisien. The two women were convicted of libel in 2023 and fined the equivalent of about $2,600.
That case, and others that followed, stem from years of conspiracy theories falsely claiming that Brigitte Macron was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, which is in fact the name of her brother.
The Macrons have also pursued legal action in the United States. Last year, the French president and first lady filed a 218-page defamation lawsuit in Delaware against commentator Candace Owens and her businesses, alleging she profited financially from making “demonstrably false” claims that Brigitte Macron is secretly transgender, according to the court filing.
According to AP, the Macrons, who married in 2007, first met when Emmanuel Macron was a high school student and Brigitte Macron was a teacher. At the time, she was known as Brigitte Auzière and was a married mother of three.
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