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Ten people are to go on trial in Paris on Monday for online harassment of Brigitte Macron – the latest phase in 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 French trial comes after 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 – 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, 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 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 is 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 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.
The French first lady filed a complaint in Paris in August 2024 that led to an investigation into online harassment and 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” 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 who goes by the pseudonym Amandine Roy.
In 2021, she posted a four-hour interview with self-described independent journalist Natacha Rey on her YouTube channel, alleging 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 then overturned on appeal. The appeal court verdict did not imply that the claims that Brigitte Macron was 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 cour de cassation.
Emerging as early as Emmanuel Macron’s election in 2017, the claims about Brigitte Macron being a man have been amplified by far-right and conspiracy theorist circles in France, and in the US. The presidential couple filed a US defamation lawsuit in July against Owens, who produced a series titled Becoming Brigitte, claiming the French first lady was born a man.
The Macrons are planning to offer “scientific” evidence and photos proving that the first lady was not born a man, according to their US lawyer.
Several of those to go on trial in Paris shared posts from the influencer.
The false theory about Brigitte Macron’s gender spread in part because the Macrons’ relationship had long been a topic of comment 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, 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 and she and Emmanuel Macron married the following year when he was 30.
Brigitte Macron has not spoken publicly on the false gender claims since 2022, when she told French radio, RTL, the allegations were an “impossible” attack on her parents’ family tree. She told TF1 TV at the time she wanted to set an example so other people would not suffer in the same way. She said fighting online bullying “is my battle”.
