Ten people accused of harassing Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, will go on trial today in Paris, as part of a case the couple brought against people they say spread false accusations that the French first lady was born a man.
The French lawsuit, which pertains to a legal complaint filed by Brigitte in 2024, is separate from a lawsuit Macron filed in the United States in July against right-wing political podcast host Candace Owens, who the couple alleges used the rumor about Brigitte’s biological sex to bolster her popularity.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron arrive at Downing Street, London, on the second day of their state visit to the UK. Photo date: Wednesday July 9, 2025.
Photo cStefan Rousseau/PA Wire
The Macrons said in a lawsuit filed in Delaware Superior Court that Owens has waged a “global humiliation campaign” filled with lies and “relentless intimidation” to promote his podcast and expand his “frenzied” fan base.
Meanwhile, in Paris, eight men and two women between 41 and 60 years old his trial began in a criminal court, all accused of online harassment against Macron.
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If convicted, they face up to two years in prison.
According to The Guardian, prosecutors say the defendants, all of whom deny the allegations, made several malicious comments about Brigitte’s gender and sexuality and allegedly said the age difference between her and her husband amounts to pedophilia.
Brigitte is 72 years old and her husband is 47.
Brigitte Macron was known as Brigitte Auzière, a 39-year-old married woman and mother of three, when she met 15-year-old Macron while he was a student at the secondary school where she taught.
He moved to Paris for his last year of high school, but promised to marry Brigitte. She later moved to the French capital to join him and divorced before finally marrying in 2007, when he was 30.
Allegations about her gender date back to the fringe online discourse of the COVID-19 pandemic, when French content creators Amandine Roy, who is among the accused, and Natacha Rey made a YouTube video speculating about Brigitte’s gender.
In 2021, Roy published the extensive interview with Rey, a self-proclaimed independent journalist, alleging that Macron, born Trogneux, was once a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux.
the couple won a defamation lawsuit in France against Roy and Rey in 2024, but the verdict was overturned in 2025 on freedom of expression grounds.
Also among the accused is a woman named Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, a publicist who calls herself “Zoé Sagan.”
In August, as part of the US lawsuit against Owens, the Macrons said they would present scientific evidence in a US court proving that Brigitte was born a woman.
In March 2024, Owens wrote in X“I’m betting my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is, in fact, a man.”
FILE – Conservative commentator Candace Owens speaks at the Right Convention in Paris on Sept. 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
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In an interview with conservative influencer Tucker Carlson earlier this year, Owens said he didn’t want the case to be dismissed because it was about something “much bigger.”
“It’s incredibly disturbing to think that you have to submit and present this kind of evidence,” the Macrons’ lawyer Tom Clare told the BBC in September in response to the case against Owens.
Brigitte has not spoken publicly about the allegation since 2022.
– With files from Global News reporter Katie Scott
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