I AM Madame Macron
French first lady puts trolls on trial for claiming she is secretly a man
BRIGITTE, c’est moi! France’s elegant first lady, Brigitte Macron, is about to take the extraordinary step of going to trial in a Paris court to fight a conspiracy theory — amplified last month by American conservative commentator Candace Owens — that she was born a man.
Brigitte, 70, has long been the subject of fascination because of her marriage to the much younger Emmanuel Macron, 46. The two met in northern France when he was a 15year-old student and she his drama teacher, and wed in 2007.
But now wild claims, made by two female French Internet influencers, that she was actually born Jean-Michel Trogneux and became a trans woman in the 1980s have electrified France.
The French scornfully call it part of the burgeoning “complosphère,” or world of conspiracy theories.
Mme. Macron's libel trial is set for June, where she will face off against right-wing accuser and freelance journalist Natacha Rey, who hides behind avatars to push rumors that powerful members of the French establishment are hiding Brigitte's true identity.
Emmanuel Macron has angrily hit back at the slurs, calling them “false and fabricated.”
Filial confusion
The president was unusually candid and emotional about the ongoing speculation about his wife, whom he married in 2007.
“The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios,” Macron said at an International Women’s Day event in Paris in February after he guaranteed the right to abortion in France’s Constitution.
“People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy.”
The bizarre saga began back in December 2021 when Rey, 49, a self-described freelance journalist, and Amandine Roy, 53, who calls herself a clairvoyant, made a now-deleted YouTube video as part of Roy's online show “Mediumsation,” in which they claimed that Brigitte was born a baby boy called Jean-Michel Trogneux in 1953.
Trogneux is Brigitte's maiden name, and Jean-Michel is her older brother.
The conspiracy theory first surfaced in an article written by Rey in the farright French magazine “Faits et Documents” after Macron was first elected president of France in 2017.
The women also alleged that Brigitte’s first husband, André-Louis Auzière, had never actually existed. The two, who were married from 1974 to
2006, shared three children: daughters Tiphaine, 40, and Laurence, 47, and son Sébastien, 49. Auzière passed away in 2019 at age 68.
Rey claimed that the uncle of André-Louis, Jean-Louis Auzière, forged administrative documents to hide that his wife had given birth to all of Brigitte’s three children.
Last summer, a judge in Normandy found Rey and Roy guilty of libel. Both Brigitte and her brother have brought separate suits against the women. Following appeals, Roy was fined the equivalent of just under $1,000 and Rey had to pay about $500.
“After looking into this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” Owens wrote in a Tuesday post on X. “Any journalist or publication that is trying to dismiss this plausibility is immediately identifiable as establishment. I have never seen anything like this in my life. The implications here are terrifying.”
After Owens’ tweet, Brigitte’s Paris lawyer Jean Ennochi said he requested the trial date involving the defamation case against Rey be moved up to June 2024. It had originally been scheduled for March 2025.
“In recent weeks, particularly internationally via the Trumpist influencer Candace Owens, I felt that the harm to my clients was increasing day by day,” Ennochi said.
Neither Owens nor Ennochi returned a call from The Post.
‘It’s insane’
“It doesn't make sense, I think it's insane and so does most of France,” Marie, a 70-something fashion executive in Paris who did not want to give her last name for fear of online backlash, told The Post. “I think it's all jealousy and propaganda. Just look at them. Macron is always reaching for her hand or her shoulder. She has that big smile when she looks at him. She always looks like she's in love. Married people don't usually look like that.”
Though many in France wonder why the Macrons are giving the conspiracy theory attention by suing, some admire them for it.
“The whole story really angers me, similar to the same story that still circulates about Michelle Obama who certain trolls still call Michael,” Allison Coe, a 25-year resident of France and veteran blogger, told The Post.
“It’s peak trolling because it is just so mean and humiliating and you don’t want to stoop to defend against it. The lawsuit definitely gives the story more oxygen, but on the other hand it takes enormous courage to dare face it head-on knowing the predictable tabloid backlash,” Coe added. “I cringe for [Brigitte] but really admire her for having the stones to refuse to cower.”
Longtime French Riviera-based musician Rose Leroux agreed:
“She is so clearly a woman. A smart woman. A woman not afraid to defend herself rather than to ask anyone else, like a man, like her husband, who is president of France, to help her. She is the quintessential, ultimate French femme.”
Ignoring the evidence
Many French media outlets have weighed in with headlines about Brigitte's supposed secret side.
The infamous satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo ran a graphic cartoon of Macron gesturing at his wife's crotch, saying: “She isn’t transgender, she's always been a man!”
Brigitte’s daughter Tiphaine, an attorney who rarely gives interviews, first addressed the painful rumors in an interview in February in Paris Match.
“I have concerns about the level of society when I hear what is circulating on social networks about my mother being a man,” Auzaine told the outlet. “The confidence of what is affirmed and the credit given to what is proclaimed. Anyone can say anything about anyone, and it takes time to get it taken down.”
Though journalists have confronted Amandine Roy with photographic evidence and other documentation showing Brigitte as a young girl and evidence that her brother is still alive, Roy was undeterred.
“I come from Brittany,” Roy told the Daily Mail last month. “People from Brittany are stubborn. A lot of people have said I am crazy. They look at me with contempt. But I follow the facts, so if this really is untrue, then Brigitte Macron can prove it by taking a simple DNA test.”