The lawsuit follows a defamation action brought by the Macrons in the United States following false online allegations about Brigitte.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron are seen on July 7, 2017 at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. PHOTO: REUTERS
Ten people went on trial in Paris on Monday for online sexist harassment against Brigitte Macron, in the latest case linked to unfounded gender allegations made against the French first lady.
The lawsuit comes after she and President Emmanuel Macron filed a defamation suit in the United States in late July, linked to a false claim amplified and repeated online that Brigitte Macron was assigned a boy at birth.
This assertion has long been aimed at the presidential couple, alongside criticism regarding their quarter-century age gap.
The First Lady was absent at the opening of the trial at the Paris criminal court of ten defendants – eight men and two women, aged 41 to 65 – accused of cyber-harassment targeting Brigitte Macron.
Brigitte Macron, 72, is not expected to appear in court, but her daughter Tiphaine Auzière could testify on Tuesday, the first lady’s lawyer told AFP.
If convicted, the defendants face up to two years in prison.
They were accused of having made numerous malicious comments on the gender and sexuality of Brigitte Macron, in particular equating her age difference with her 47-year-old husband to “pedophilia”, according to the prosecution.
The first lady of France filed a complaint in August 2024 which led to an investigation for cyberharassment and arrests in December 2024 and February 2025.
“Conspiracy theorists”
Among the defendants is Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, 41, a publicist known on social media as “Zoe Sagan” and often linked to conspiracy theory circles.
He and several other defendants denounced the trial.
On Monday, during a break, Poirson-Atlan gave an impromptu press conference, denouncing “reverse harassment”.
Bertrand S., a 56-year-old gallery owner with more than 100,000 followers on X, struck a similar tone.
“The press presents us as far-right, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists,” he told AFP on the eve of the trial.
“Who is being harassed? »
Among the defendants is also a woman already targeted by a defamation complaint filed by Brigitte Macron in 2022: Delphine J., 51, self-proclaimed medium who bears the pseudonym Amandine Roy.
In 2021, she published a four-hour interview with self-proclaimed independent journalist Natacha Rey on her YouTube channel, alleging that Brigitte Macron, whose maiden name is Trogneux, had once been a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux, named after her brother.
The two women were ordered to pay damages to Brigitte Macron and her brother in 2024 before the conviction was overturned on appeal. The first lady has since taken the case to the nation’s highest appeals court.
Emerging since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, these claims have been amplified by far-right circles and conspiracy theorists in France and the United States, where transgender rights have become a burning issue at the heart of the American culture wars.
The presidential couple filed a defamation action in July in the United States against conservative podcaster Candace Owens, who produced a series called “Becoming Brigitte”, claiming that she was born a man.
The couple plans to present “scientific” evidence and photos proving that the first lady is not transgender, according to their American lawyer.
Several of the people who are to be tried in Paris have shared publications by the American influencer.
In one of them, a defendant shares the demands of “2,000 people” ready to go “door to door in Amiens (birthplace of the presidential couple) to shed light on the Brigitte affair”.
Other prominent women in political circles, including former US first lady Michelle Obama, former US vice-president Kamala Harris and former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, have also been targets of misinformation about their gender or sexuality.
