WHEN right-wing YouTuber Candace Owens started claiming Brigitte Macron was a man, most of the French First Lady’s fellow citizens passed it off with a very Gallic shrug.
Surely – that the was in fact her older brother – seemed so utterly ridiculous that no one would ever give it any credence?
Brigitte Macron has been forced to defend herself against cyberbullying in courtCredit: Getty
Candace Owens made a string of outlandish allegations about President Macron’s wifeCredit: Getty
The President and First Lady of France have long faced speculation over their 25-year age-gap relationshipCredit: France 3
But, as with all , it started gathering pace – and this week ten people accused of cyberbullying the 72-year-old appeared in court.
Not only that, but an entire podcast ‘Becoming Brigitte’ has aired – garnering millions of views – where Owens ludicrously links the Macrons to baffling CIA mind-control programmes and paedophilia.
And she even made a £300,000 bet with that Brigitte is a man.
As the bombshell trial kicked off this week, , as conspiracists battled for the preservation of ‘free speech’, while representatives for the Macrons revealed the devastating impact of online trolls.
reportedly reads every word of the “whirlwind of online abuse” claiming she was born a man, the court heard.
, her daughter, Tiphaine Auzière, 41, told the Paris Correctional Court on Tuesday – the second day of the cyberstalking trial – that her mother was “constantly under attack and it affected her enormously”.
Ten defendants – including an elected official, a gallery owner, and a teacher – are facing up to two years in jail for spreading poisonous rumours about the wife of President Emmanuel Macron, 47.
The bizarre case has shone a light on how the online conspiracy underworld – long – is slowly taking hold in Europe and, in particular, crisis-hit France.
In the midst of a political meltdown that has seen the government collapse three times in the last year alone, the tinderbox climate has proved a breeding ground for outlandish theories.
Wild stories about the Macrons have not only widely circulated on social media, but been picked up and run with by , as well as anti-vaxxers.
French privacy laws, while strict, are increasingly being ignored by online commentators, making Mrs Macron’s trial an unlikely referendum on the consequences of so-called ‘fake news’.
Notably, Brigitte herself has chosen to stay away from the high-profile trial, along with three of the accused.
But daughter Tiphaine, herself a lawyer, said: “It was important for me to be here today to express the harm.
“I wanted to express what her life has been like since she suffered this hatred. There has been change and deterioration.
“My mother always has to be careful about how she dresses and behaves in public because of this fake news.
“She knows that her image could be taken and distorted. She’s constantly under attack. She can’t ignore all the horrors being said about her.”
'I've met Brigitte and fear court case will backfire'
By Peter Allen in France
Hate mail comes at you fast when you’re the First Lady of France.
Even if – like Brigitte Macron – you’re a pensioner with seven grandkids, the online poison is unrelenting.
I chatted with her frequently before the election of her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, back in 2017, and she had no idea what was about to hit her.
Yes, her new job was all about fame and glamour, but she couldn’t censor her trolls.
France has changed massively over the past decade, with the expansion of social media multiplying attacks.
Hence 72-year-old Brigitte being ridiculed over everything – from the age difference with her second husband, who’s 47, to accusations that she was born a boy.
“Just ignore it – it’s all nonsense,” wise advisors told her, but instead she got legal.
That’s how I ended up covering yet another of her court cases against 10 alleged cyberbullies this week.
Inevitably, they used the high-profile Paris trial to get even more publicity for their wild conspiracy theories.
It was all so humiliating that Brigitte couldn’t bear to turn up – a ridiculous move when she wanted convictions.
Yes, her critics have been cruel and stupid, but in France – a free speech democracy – they might well be acquitted when the verdict is handed down in January.
This will undoubtedly make them louder and nastier.
Transgender & CIA mind-control rumours
The conspiracy theory that Brigitte Macron is transgender began circulating in 2017, during her husband’s election.
But it wasn’t until Candace Owens took it on – fronting her podcast and YouTube series – that it really went viral.
“When I said that I would stake my entire professional career on the fact that Brigitte Macron, the current First Lady of France, was born a man, there were many people of course who did not believe me because that just sounds crazy,” Owens said in the first episode of the series.
The 36-year-old mother-of-four – who was fired from pro-Trump outlet The Daily Wire over anti-Semitic comments – didn’t stop at her so-called “transvestigation” of Brigitte.
She went on to make a string of bizarre claims, alleging that the French President and his wife are blood relatives, that Macron’s leadership is part of a CIA-backed mind-control programme, and that Brigitte took part in the – which recruited 24 male students for the mock study.
She’s constantly under attack. She can’t ignore all the horrors being said about her
Brigitte's daughter
She also linked the couple to other baseless conspiracies involving incest and paedophilia.
In July, the Macrons filed a defamation suit against Owens, citing a “relentless campaign of humiliation” while deliberately ignoring evidence to peddle “known conspiracy theorists and defamers”.
But the impending court case did not deter Owens – who hit back, saying she would demand a medical examination as part of any trial in the US.
She then ramped up the rhetoric, even predicting that Brigitte’s death would be faked before any court case.
Brigitte is said to have felt ‘constantly under attack’ by trollsCredit: AFP
Bizarre theories claimed she even took part in the 1971 Stanford prison experimentCredit: Getty
Bizarrely, President was also drawn into the conspiracy theory, when Emmanuel Macron allegedly pulled him to one side as he visited the in February, begging him to speak to Owens.
In August, Owens told American conservative commentator that President Trump personally called her, urging her to stop questioning Mrs Macron’s gender.
After the president allegedly told Owens that “she looks like a woman to me,” the podcaster replied: “Respectfully, Mr President, it’s not my fault that he married somebody with a penis.”
When neither the US President nor an impending court case could stop her, Owens went further, repeating the outlandish claim on Piers Morgan Uncensored in August and even placing a $300k wager with the host over Mrs Macron’s gender.
Morgan, who dismissed the as “utter nonsense,” accused Owens of being either duped by French conspiracists or, worse, knowingly spreading lies for profit.
Owens fired back, saying she was “only interested in the truth” and dismissed accusations of bullying.
Origins of conspiracy
So how did it all start? Brigitte and Emmanuel’s romance, marked by a significant age gap, has been surrounded by controversy from the very beginning.
In 1992, at La Providence high school in Amiens, 14-year-old Emmanuel developed a crush on his drama teacher, Brigitte Auzière, then 40 and married with three young children.
Some have alleged that the relationship was dangerously inappropriate – claims both parties have always denied – though Mrs Macron later admitted that being romantically linked “with such a young boy was crippling,” particularly in their close-knit, Roman Catholic community.
She recalled the rumours her own son and two daughters – one of whom was a classmate of young Emmanuel – had to endure, saying: “You can imagine what they were hearing. But I didn’t want to miss out on my life.”
In 2007, when Brigitte was 54 and Emmanuel was 29, the pair tied the knot in Le Touquet, a small seaside town in northern France.
Emmanuel Macron, second from right, at the Lycee de La Providence in Amiens, around the time he would have met his now-wife
The President and First Lady have taken drastic action to fight back against the trollsCredit: Getty – Contributor
Fast forward to September 2021, four years into Macron’s presidency, when the far-right monthly Faits et Documents (Facts and Documents) published a “three-year investigation” into his wife.
French conspiracy theorist Natacha Rey – who left her job selling essential oils to become an “independent investigative journalist” and has a history of targeting the Macrons on Facebook – contributed to the investigation.
She gave a YouTube interview that year, and the allegations quickly went viral.
In the interview, Rey referred to an old family photograph of the Trogneuxs – Brigitte’s maiden name – in which a little girl is seen sitting on her mother’s knee alongside family including a young boy.
Rey said the girl was probably Nathalie Farcy, who was orphaned when Brigitte’s older sister, Maryvonne, was killed in a car crash, along with her husband Paul Farcy, when Brigitte was a child.
Sensationally, Rey then claimed Brigitte’s birth name was in fact Jean-Michel Trogneux – the boy in the checked shirt in the photograph – before ‘he’ became a transgender woman and underwent a sex change operation in the early 1980s.
The story went viral, with conspiracists and anti-Macron activists seizing upon it.
There were many people of course who did not believe me because that just sounds crazy
Candace Owens
The ‘trigger’ for the Faits et Documents investigation – dubbed The Mystery of Brigitte Macron – was her physique, according to Rey.
She claimed that “experts,” including cosmetic surgeons, “all agree with me that Brigitte Macron is a transsexual”.
Research suggests that the boy in the checked shirt is possibly her late older brother Jean-Claude, who was eight years older than Brigitte and became manager of the family chocolate factory.
The Faits et Documents magazine claimed Elysee officials had been unable to provide a photograph of Brigitte as a child.
In fact, there are numerous records in French publications, including a seven-year-old Brigitte taking her first Holy Communion.
There is also one of her playing in the garden of her home, as well as all in white on her wedding day, with her first husband, wealthy banker Andre-Louis Auziere.
Amandine Roy was found guilty of libel last year, before being cleared on appealCredit: EPA
Aurelien Poirson-Atlan said the Macrons should ‘accept being criticised’ as he defended himself in court this weekCredit: Shutterstock Editorial
Age-gap romance
Before she entered the Elysee Palace in 2017 as the wife of the youngest president in French history, Mrs Macron told her pupils: “You’ll hear remarks, true and false. I’ll never talk about them.”
But the wave of rumours finally forced her to act, with Rey first in the firing line in a string of legal actions.
Rey and Amandine Roy, a clairvoyant who appeared on the four-hour YouTube video in December 2021, were found guilty of libel and initially fined in September last year.
Earlier this year, the pair were cleared on appeal – emboldening the conspiracy theorists.
“The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios,” Mr Macron has said of the baseless theories. “People eventually believe them and disturb you.”
In court this week, those on trial denied any wrongdoing and upped the ante – saying that Mrs Macron is a public figure, and they have the right of free speech.
Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, a 41-year-old conspiracy theorist known on social media as Zoe Sagan, told the court: “If I were married to a President of the Republic tomorrow, I would accept being criticised.”
He said he was the victim of “reverse cyberbullying” and described it as “pure madness” that he was arrested simply for posting messages.
Luc Brossollet, defence barrister for Poirson-Atlan, also pointed to the “excessive media coverage” welcomed by the Macrons, because they “want to win the hearts of the French people”.
The trial is now concluded, with a verdict due in January. But in France’s conspiracy land, the conversation shows no signs of slowing down.
