Ten people were convicted in Paris Monday for cyber-bullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron. File Photo by Teresa Suarez/EPA
Jan. 5 (UPI) — A Paris court found 10 people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron, wife of President Emmanuel Macron.
They were accused of spreading false claims about her gender and making “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between the Macrons.
The false claims are from a 2017 conspiracy theory that Brigitte Macron was a transgender woman. The allegation was amplified in the United States, pushed by right-wing media personality Candace Owens. The Macrons have also filed a lawsuit in the United States against Owens.
All but one of the defendants in France were given suspended sentences of up to eight months. The other person was jailed for not showing up to court. Some also had their social media accounts suspended.
The judge said the defendants acted with a clear desire to harm Brigitte Macron with comments that were degrading and insulting.
“The most important things are the prevention courses and the suspension of some of the accounts” of the perpetrators, Jean Ennochi, Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, said.
Two of the defendants had been found guilty of slander in 2024 for claiming that the first lady had never existed. Natacha Rey, a self-proclaimed journalist, and Amandine Roy, who claims to be a psychic, said Macron’s brother Jean-Michel Trogneux had changed gender and began using Brigitte Macron’s name.
Their convictions were overturned on appeal because claiming that she is transgender isn’t an “attack on her honor.”
The Macrons are appealing the ruling.
Brigitte Macron’s daughter Tiphaine Auzière, 41, told the court that the false claims had damaged her mother’s quality of life. She said Brigitte Macron worried every day about the clothes she wore and how she stood.
Auzière said the social media posts had caused a “deterioration of her health” and a “deterioration of her quality of life.”
“Not a day or week goes by when someone does not talk about this to her … What is very hard for her are the repercussions on her family … Her grandchildren hear what is being said: ‘Your grandmother is lying’ or ‘Your grandmother is your grandfather.’ This affects her a lot. She does not know how to stop it. … She’s not elected, she has not sought anything, and she is permanently subjected to these attacks. I — as a daughter, a woman and a mother — would not wish her life on anyone,” Auzière said.
Trogneux, 80, lives in Amiens, where he grew up with Brigitte Macron and their siblings.
