Seven of the 10 ‘trolls’ have appeared in a Paris court accused of harassing Brigitte Macron so much that she suffered ‘a serious deterioration in her physical and mental health’
Ten people could face up to two years in prison each after being accused of sexist cyberbullying of French first lady Brigitte Macron over statements about her gender.
Seven of the ‘trolls’ appeared in court today accused of harassing Macron so much that he suffered “a serious deterioration in his physical and mental health.”
The defendants, a woman and six men, are accused of claiming that the 72-year-old woman was born a man and was “a pedophile” who abused her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, 47, when he was a child. They all face two years in prison if convicted of cyberbullying Macron.
Ten people have been charged, but three did not appear at the start of their trial at the Paris Correctional Court on Monday.
Among those who did appear was Amandine Roy, a clairvoyant whose real name is Delphine Jegousse, 53 years old. He appeared in a four-hour YouTube video in December 2021, allegedly claiming that Macron, a mother of three, was born as a boy named Jean-Michel Trogneux in 1953. In fact, this is the name of Brigitte’s brother, and Macron was called Brigitte Trogneux before her first marriage.
Roy also claimed that Brigitte’s first husband, André-Louis Auzière, had never existed before his reported death in 2020, aged 68. Roy was found guilty of defamation against Macron last year, before being acquitted on appeal.
Appearing in court today for his criminal trial, Roy was told by the presiding judge: “You are charged with the same crime as the other defendants, namely harassing Brigitte Macron online. This caused a serious deterioration in your physical and mental health.”
Macron was not present in court, but was represented by his lawyer, Jean Ennochi. Maud Marian, representing Roy, said her client had simply “responded to other posts” online and had not trolled Macron directly.
All of the defendants deny any wrongdoing and claim their right to freedom of expression is being infringed because they attacked a senior member of the Paris political establishment.
The trial centers on “numerous malicious comments about Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality,” as well as her age difference with her husband, who has “compared her to a pedophile,” said a spokesperson for the Paris prosecutor’s office.
And he added: “On August 27, Brigitte Macron filed a complaint for cyberbullying, a crime punishable by two years in prison.”
Among those also charged is Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, a 41-year-old woman known on social media as ‘Zoe Sagan’. Juan Branco, Poirson-Atlan’s defense attorney, said the prosecution was “going in an obvious political direction.” He said it was particularly scandalous that his client was being tried over what amounted to a matter of “freedom of opinion”.
The Macron marriage has always been subject to hurtful speculation due to its controversial beginnings. The future president was a student in 1992 at La Providence secondary school in Amiens, northern France, when he first developed a deep affection for his drama teacher, Brigitte Auzière, then 40, who was married with three young children.
Some claim the relationship became dangerously irresponsible (allegations both sides have always denied), but Macron later admitted that being romantically linked “to a child so young was paralyzing,” especially in a close-knit Roman Catholic community.
He spoke of the rumors his own son and two daughters, one of them a classmate of young Emmanuel, had to deal with, saying, “You can imagine what they were hearing. But I didn’t want to miss out on my life.”
The couple finally married in 2007, a decade before Macron emerged from nowhere and won the French presidency as an independent candidate.
