Daughter says Brigitte Macron’s life ‘deteriorated’ after alleged cyber-bullying

Brigitte Macron’s daughter told a Paris court that sexist cyberbullying had negatively affected her mother’s health and living conditions.

Tiphaine Auzière, 41, is the stepdaughter of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Brigitte took the stand on the second and final day of the trial of 10 people accused of spreading false claims about Macron’s gender and sexuality.

Ms Macron, 72, has long been the target of conspiracy theories claiming she is a trans woman.

“It is important to be here today to express the harm my mother faced. I wanted to describe what her life was like from the moment she began to be the target of these attacks,” Ms. Auzière said. he said.

He added that he had noticed a change and “deterioration” in his mother’s health since allegations about her gender and sexuality began to emerge.

“Mrs Macron had to be careful in her choice of clothing and stance… She knows very well that her image will be used to support these theories,” Ms. Auzière said.

He said not a day went by without the allegations being reported to his mother in some way — “even by someone who meant well and felt for her.”

Ms Auzière said her mother had “learned to live with it” but suffered from the negative effects on her grandchildren, who were ridiculed at school.

“He wasn’t elected, he didn’t ask for anything from anyone, and he was attacked.”

Prosecutors are seeking a suspended prison sentence of three to 12 months and a fine of up to 8,000 euros ($9,300) for the defendant.

The defendants, whose ages range from 41 to 65, include an elected official, a gallery owner and a teacher.

A man named Aurélien Poirson-Atlan is accused of telling his 200,000 online followers that Ms. Macron was a transgender woman and that her 24-year age difference with Emmanuel Macron amounted to “state-sanctioned pedophilia.”

Mr Poirson-Atlan told the court on Tuesday that he was simply a “satirist” who wanted to put forward “a point of view different from that of the mainstream media”.

Two other defendants, self-described independent journalists Natacha Rey and internet fortune-teller Amandine Roy, were convicted of libel last year for claiming that France’s First Lady never existed and that her brother had changed gender and started using her name. They were later acquitted by the appeals court.

Other defendants also said they were exercising their “freedom of expression”. Someone demanded that the Macrons release photos of Brigitte Macron being pregnant to prove that she is a biological woman.

The Macrons have already indicated they will present such evidence in cases against US right-wing influencer Candace Owens.

Owens has repeatedly supported his view that Brigitte Macron is a man, and claimed in March 2024 that he would risk his “entire professional reputation” on the claim.

Earlier this year the Macrons’ lawyer in the case, Tom Clare, told the BBC that the couple would present photographic and scientific evidence to the US court to prove that Mrs Macron was a woman.

“It’s incredibly sad to think that you have to go and subject yourself to come forward with that kind of evidence,” he said.

Ms. Macron first met her now-husband when she was a secondary school teacher.

The couple married in 2007, when Mr Macron was 29 and Mrs Macron was 54.