10 on trial in Paris over online abuse of Brigitte Macron
Ten people are due to go on trial in Paris on Monday for online harassment of Brigitte Macron, in the latest phase of a legal battle on both sides of the Atlantic over the false claim that the French first lady is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux.
The French trial follows a defamation lawsuit filed by President Emmanuel Macron and his wife in the United States at the end of July, in connection with a rumour spread online that Brigitte Macron was born a man.
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The Macrons’ US lawsuit condemned what it described as the “verifiably false and devastating lies” repeated online by the right-wing podcaster Candace Owens, who claimed that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born male. The suit stated that evidence clearly disproved this “grotesque narrative”, which had become “a campaign of global humiliation” and “relentless bullying on a worldwide scale”.
The French trial for online harassment is separate from the US court action and relates to a legal complaint filed by Brigitte Macron in 2024. Ten defendants — eight men and two women aged between 41 and 60- will be tried in Paris’s criminal court, accused of online harassment targeting Brigitte Macron. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison.
The defendants, who deny all wrongdoing, are accused of making numerous malicious comments about Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality, even equating her age difference with her husband to “paedophilia”, according to prosecutors.
The Macron’s US lawsuit stated that the accusation that Brigitte Macron was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux is completely false. Jean-Michel Trogneux is, in fact, Brigitte Macron’s 80-year-old brother.
He lives in the northern French city of Amiens, where he grew up with Brigitte and their four other siblings in a family known for its local chocolate business. He appeared publicly alongside Brigitte at Emmanuel Macron’s presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022.
The French first lady filed a complaint in Paris in August 2024 that led to an investigation into online harassment and several arrests in December 2024 and February 2025.
Among the defendants, who have all denied wrongdoing, is Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, 41, a publicist known on social media as “Zoé Sagan”, often associated with conspiracy theory circles.
The defendants also include a woman who was already the subject of a defamation complaint filed by Brigitte Macron in 2022: Delphine J, 51, a self-proclaimed spiritual medium who uses the pseudonym Amandine Roy.
In 2021, she posted a four-hour interview on her YouTube channel with self-described independent journalist Natacha Rey, alleging that Brigitte Macron, whose maiden name is Trogneux, had once been a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux.
The two women, who denied wrongdoing, were ordered to pay damages to Brigitte Macron and her brother in 2024, but their conviction was later overturned on appeal. The appeal court’s verdict did not imply that the claims about Brigitte Macron’s gender were true; rather, the judges ruled that the case against the women did not meet the definition of defamation.
Brigitte Macron and Jean-Michel Trogneux have since taken the case to France’s highest appeals court, the Cour de Cassation.
Claims that Brigitte Macron is a man first emerged around the time of Emmanuel Macron’s election in 2017 and have since been amplified by far-right and conspiracy theorist circles in both France and the United States. The presidential couple filed a US defamation lawsuit in July against Owens, who produced a series titled Becoming Brigitte, alleging that the French first lady was born a man.
The Macrons plan to present “scientific” evidence and photographs proving that the first lady was not born male, according to their US lawyer.
Several of those facing trial in Paris are alleged to have shared posts from Owens’s content.
The false theory about Brigitte Macron’s gender gained traction partly because the couple’s relationship had long attracted public attention online.
Brigitte Macron, who is 24 years older than her husband, first met Emmanuel Macron when she was a French teacher at his Jesuit secondary school in Amiens, where she directed him in a school play.
The Macrons’ US lawsuit stated: “Through the school’s theatre programme, President Macron and Mrs Macron formed a deeper intellectual connection.” It added: “At all times, the teacher–student relationship between Mrs Macron and President Macron remained within the bounds of the law.” Brigitte Macron, who has three children from her first marriage, divorced in 2006, and she and Emmanuel Macron married the following year when he was 30.
Brigitte Macron has not spoken publicly about the false gender claims since 2022, when she told French radio RTL that the allegations were an “impossible” attack on her parents’ family tree. She told TF1 television at the time that she wanted to set an example so that others would not suffer in the same way. She said that fighting online bullying “is my battle”
