PARIS, FRANCE – Ten people went on trial in a Paris criminal court on Monday, facing charges of sexist and malicious online harassment against French First Lady Brigitte Macron. The case marks the latest legal battle in a long-running, coordinated disinformation campaign alleging the First Lady was assigned male at birth.
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| The far right has spread unsubstantiated rumours that Brigitte Macron was assigned male at birth (Eliot BLONDET) |
The trial, which could see the defendants jailed for up to two years if convicted, is the culmination of an investigation launched after Ms. Macron filed a formal complaint in August 2024. The 10 defendants—eight men and two women, aged 41 to 60 were absent from the trial's opening.
They are accused of participating in a sustained campaign of cyber-harassment, flooding the internet with malicious comments about Ms. Macron's gender and sexuality. According to prosecutors, the attacks were virulently personal, even equating the 24-year age gap between her and her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, to "paedophilia."
The Heart of the Conspiracy
This trial is not just about online vitriol; it is a direct confrontation with a bizarre and baseless conspiracy theory that has dogged the Macrons since the 2017 election.
Among the defendants are figures central to the rumor's creation and amplification. They include Delphine J., 51, a self-proclaimed spiritual medium known as "Amandine Roy." In 2021, Roy posted a four-hour interview on her YouTube channel with a self-described "independent journalist," Natacha Rey. In that video, they alleged that Brigitte Macron, whose maiden name is Trogneux, had once been a man named "Jean-Michel Trogneux" who is, in reality, her brother.
Another defendant is Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, 41, a publicist known as "Zoe Sagan" who is frequently linked to conspiracy theory circles.
The 2021 video went viral, launching the "Jean-Michel Trogneux" claim from the fringes of the French far-right into the global disinformation ecosystem. While Ms. Macron and her brother previously won a libel case against Roy and Rey in 2024, the conviction was later overturned on appeal. Ms. Macron has since escalated that civil case to France's highest appeals court.
A Two-Front War: Macrons Take the Fight to the US
The Paris criminal trial is just one front in the Élysée Palace's fight against the rumor. The conspiracy has been aggressively amplified in the United States, where transgender rights have become a central flashpoint in a bitter culture war.
At the end of July, the presidential couple filed a separate defamation lawsuit in the United States against conservative podcaster Candace Owens. Owens produced a series titled "Becoming Brigitte," which was dedicated entirely to promoting the claim that the First Lady is transgender.
In a sign of how seriously the Macrons are taking the US-based attacks, their American lawyer stated that the couple plans to offer "scientific" evidence and photographs to definitively prove the claim is false.
The two legal battles are directly linked. Investigators found that several of the 10 defendants on trial in Paris had actively shared and promoted posts from Owens. In one such post, a defendant shared a claim that "2,000 people" were ready to go "door-to-door in Amiens (the presidential couple's hometown) to get to the bottom of the Brigitte affair."
This tactic of weaponizing gender-based disinformation is not unique to Ms. Macron. Other high-profile female political figures, including former US First Lady Michelle Obama, US Vice President Kamala Harris, and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, have all been the targets of similar false claims about their gender or sexuality.