A Paris court has found ten people guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, after ruling that they deliberately spread false and harmful claims about her online.
The eight men and two women were accused of circulating rumours about Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality, as well as posting malicious and degrading comments about the 24-year age difference between her and the president. The court said the defendants acted with a clear intention to cause harm.
Most of those convicted received suspended prison sentences of up to eight months, while one defendant was jailed immediately for failing to appear in court. Several were also ordered to have their social media accounts suspended as part of the punishment.
The case follows years of online conspiracy theories targeting France’s first lady. Among the defendants were self-described independent journalist Natacha Rey and internet fortune-teller Amandine Roy, who were convicted of slander in 2024 after claiming Brigitte Macron had never existed and alleging that her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, had changed gender and assumed her identity. Although both women were later cleared on appeal, the Macrons have since taken that ruling to France’s highest appeal court.
Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, Jean Ennochi, said the most significant outcome of the case was the preventive measures ordered by the court, including mandatory awareness courses and the suspension of accounts used to spread abuse.
During the trial, Brigitte Macron’s daughter from a previous marriage, Tiphaine Auzière, described the toll the cyberbullying had taken on her mother’s health and daily life. She said the first lady had become constantly conscious of her appearance, posture and public image, knowing that photos could be misused to fuel conspiracy theories. While Brigitte Macron had learned to cope with the attacks, Auzière said the impact on her grandchildren was particularly painful, as they were mocked at school.
The ruling in France comes ahead of a much larger legal battle in the United States, where the Macrons have filed a defamation lawsuit against right-wing influencer Candace Owens. The couple accuse Owens of repeatedly promoting conspiracy theories about Brigitte Macron’s gender while ignoring evidence disproving the claims.
Owens has regularly repeated the allegations on her podcast and social media platforms, and in March 2024 publicly stated she would stake her entire professional reputation on her belief that the French first lady was “in fact a man”.
Initially, the Macrons were advised to ignore the online rumours, out of concern that legal action would only amplify them. However, they later decided the scale and persistence of the attacks had grown too large to dismiss, prompting a shift towards legal confrontation despite the personal exposure it would bring.
The conspiracy theory alleging that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has circulated online since Emmanuel Macron first became president in 2017. Brigitte Macron, a former teacher, first met her future husband when he was a student at her secondary school. The couple married in 2007, when Emmanuel Macron was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.