10 people face trial accused of cyberbullying French president’s wife, Brigitte Macron
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- Ten people are on trial in Paris accused of spreading false, malicious claims online that France’s first lady Brigitte Macron was born male.
- The conspiracy theory, which originated in 2017, prompted a prior defamation ruling against two women and now a broader cyberbullying investigation.
- The case also involves a U.S. defamation suit against conservative influencer Candace Owens, reflecting the conspiracy’s reach across the Atlantic.
PARIS — Ten people went on trial Monday accused of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron after they allegedly made “malicious” comments online spreading claims that President Emmanuel Macron’s wife is a man.
Brigitte Macron did not show up at the two-day trial in Paris that started on Monday afternoon.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said the eight men and two women are accused of spreading “numerous malicious comments” online about the first lady’s gender and “sexuality” and of mentioning the age gap with her husband as “pedophilia.” Seven of the defendants were in court Monday, while three others were being represented by their lawyers.
Some of the defendants, whose ages range from 41 to 60, are very active on social media, with posts sometimes accumulating tens of thousands of views.
Delphine Jegousse, 51, known as Amandine Roy, who describes herself as a medium and an author, is considered as having played a major role in spreading the rumor after she released a four-hour video on her YouTube channel in 2021.
Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, 41, known as Zoe Sagan on social media, has seen his X account suspended last year after his name was cited in several judicial investigations.
Others include an elected official, a teacher and a computer scientist.
The chief judge said they are all accused of cyberbullying the first lady, which led to “a deterioration of her physical and mental health.”
The Macrons have for years been dogged by conspiracy theories that Brigitte was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux, who supposedly then took the name Brigitte as a transgender woman. Jean-Michel Trogneux is the name of Brigitte’s brother.
The two-day trial in Paris comes after the Macrons filed a defamation suit in July in a Delaware court as their lawyer said they’ll be seeking “substantial” damages from U.S. conservative influencer Candace Owens if she persists with claims that Brigitte is a man.
Owens is a right-leaning political commentator whose YouTube channel has about 4.5 million subscribers. In 2024, she was denied a visa from New Zealand and Australia, citing remarks in which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.
A verdict in the Paris case will probably be issued at a later date.
In September 2024, Brigitte and Jean-Michel Trogneux won a defamation suit against Jegousse and another woman who were sentenced by a Paris court to fines and damages for spreading the claims about the first lady online. A Paris appeals court overturned the ruling in July. Brigitte and her brother have since turned to France’s highest court to appeal that decision.
The Macrons, who have been married since 2007, first met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher. Brigitte Macron, 24 years her husband’s senior, was then called Brigitte Auziere, a married mother of three.
Emmanuel Macron, 47, has been France’s president since 2017.
Vaux-Montagny and Corbet write for the Associated Press.
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