PARIS — Ten individuals will go on trial on Monday over cyberbullying of Brigitte Macron after they allegedly made “malicious” feedback on-line spreading claims that President Emmanuel Macron ‘s spouse is a person.
The Paris prosecutor’s workplace mentioned the eight males and two ladies are accused of spreading “quite a few malicious feedback” on-line concerning the first girl’s gender and “sexuality” and of mentioning her age hole together with her husband as “paedophilia.”
Aged between 41 and 60, a few of the defendants are very lively on the social media, with posts typically cumulating dozens of 1000’s of views. A girl presenting herself as a medium and an promoting government, whose X account has since been suspended, are thought-about as having performed a serious function in spreading the rumor.
Others embrace an elected official, a trainer and a pc scientist.
The Macrons have for years been dogged by conspiracy theories that Brigitte was born a person named Jean-Michel Trogneux, who supposedly then took the identify Brigitte as a transgender lady. Jean-Michel Trogneux is the identify of Brigitte’s brother.
The 2-day trial in Paris comes after the Macrons filed a defamation suit in July in a Delaware court docket as their lawyer mentioned they’ll be searching for “substantial” damages from U.S. conservative influencer Candace Owens if she persists with claims that Brigitte is a person.
Owens is a right-leaning political commentator whose YouTube channel has about 4.5 million subscribers. In 2024, she was denied a visa from New Zealand and Australia, citing remarks through which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in focus camps throughout World Conflict II.
A verdict within the Paris case will possible be issued at a later date.
In September 2024, Brigitte and Jean-Michel Trogneux received a defamation swimsuit towards two ladies who had been sentenced by a Paris court docket to fines and damages for spreading the claims concerning the first girl on-line. A Paris appeals court docket overturned the ruling in July. Brigitte and her brother have since turned to France’s highest court docket to attraction that call.
The Macrons, who’ve been married since 2007, first met at the highschool the place he was a scholar and she or he was a trainer. Brigitte Macron, 24 years her husband’s senior, was then referred to as Brigitte Auzière, a married mom of three.
Emmanuel Macron, 47, has been France’s president since 2017.
