Ten people go on trial in Paris accused of online harassment of Brigitte Macron

Ten people have gone on trial in Paris charged with online harassment of Brigitte Macron – the latest phase of a legal battle on both sides of the Atlantic against the false claim that the French first lady is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux.

The president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife filed a defamation lawsuit in the US at the end of July, in connection with a rumour amplified and repeated online that Brigitte Macron was born a man.

The Macrons’ US lawsuit attacked what it called the “verifiably false and devastating lies” being repeated online by the rightwing podcaster Candace Owens that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born male. The US lawsuit said 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 to the US court action and relates to a legal complaint filed by Brigitte Macron in 2024. Ten defendants – eight men and two women, aged 41 to 60 – are being 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, have been 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 court heard Brigitte Macron had told police the online comments were “hateful” and that it was very hard for her grandchildren to hear it being said that their grandmother was a man.

Jérôme A, a 49-year-old IT technician, was asked about nine social media posts in 2024, which he reposted or wrote, about Brigitte Macron being a man or having a penis. He told the court he had a relatively small Twitter account. He said: “It was just a joke … I wanted to be sarcastic, nothing more.” He added that he had posted “in a satirical spirit”.

Jérôme A told the head judge: “Like a lot of people, I’m asking why I’m here today. Today, you can send people to court for tweets.”

He said that Brigitte Macron, “as a very powerful person, should accept being criticised”. He denied harassment and said he believed he had not broken the law.

Another defendant, Jérome C, a debt adviser, told the court he liked posting on social media from his sofa in the evening. “It was just humour,” he said. “Do you need a permit in France to crack a joke?”

He also told the court that he had shared posts about Brigitte Macron being a man or a paedophile in order to “inform” others. He denied harassment.

The Macrons’ US lawsuit has stated that the accusation that Brigitte Macron was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux is completely false and Trogneux is in fact Brigitte Macron’s 80-year-old brother. He lives in the northern French town of Amiens, where he grew up with Brigitte and four other Trogneux siblings in a family famous for its local chocolate business. He was present in public alongside Brigitte at Emmanuel Macron’s two presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022.

Among the defendants, who have all denied wrongdoing, is Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, 41, a publicist known on social media as “Zoé Sagan” and often linked with conspiracy theory circles.

The defendants also include a woman already the subject of a defamation complaint filed by Brigitte Macron in 2022: Delphine J, 51, a self-proclaimed spiritual medium.

In 2021, she posted a four-hour interview with the self-described independent journalist Natacha Rey on her YouTube channel, alleging that Brigitte Macron 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 overturned on appeal. The appeal court verdict did not imply that the claims that Brigitte Macron is a man were true, but instead judges ruled that the case against the women did not fit the definition of defamation.

Brigitte Macron and Jean-Michel Trogneux have taken the case to France’s highest appeals court, the court of cassation.

The Macrons’ relationship has long been a topic of comment online. Brigitte Macron, 24 years older than her husband, first met Emmanuel Macron when she was a French teacher at his Jesuit secondary school in Amiens, directing 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. She and Emmanuel Macron married the following year, when he was 30.