Four men face trial for online harassment of French First Lady Brigitte Macron

Four men will appear in court next year in Paris over allegations they harassed French First Lady Brigitte Macron online, prosecutors said Thursday, December 12. A hearing in July next year will concern “malicious comments about Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality, as well as her age difference with her husband… likening her to a pedophile,” prosecutors said.

The first lady filed a complaint in August, and authorities opened an investigation into cyberharassment and incitement to commit an offense, the prosecutor said. A trial is scheduled for the end of October.

Disinformation on her gender has circulated on social media for years. She has also been attacked over the 24-year age difference with President Emmanual Macron. The relationship between the president, 46, and his wife, 71, who met while she was a teacher and he was a teenager, is a source of media attention in France and abroad.

Among the accused is Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, born in 1984, a publicist known on social media as “Zoé Sagan,” who is often linked with conspiracy theory circles. Poirson-Atlan’s lawyer, Juan Branco, denounced the charges and accused the prosecutor of taking an “obvious political direction.”

Among the posts spread on social media is disinformation claiming that the first lady, née Brigitte Trogneux, had never existed and that her brother Jean-Michel had changed gender and assumed that identity.

In September, a French court ordered two women to pay €8,000 ($8,400) in damages to Macron after falsely claiming she was transgender, sparking online rumor-mongering by conspiracy theorists and the far right. The disinformation spread to the United States, where Macron was attacked in a now-deleted YouTube video.

The “secretly trans” narrative is a long-standing feature of online, sexist violence, according to a 2021 Wilson Center report.

In a separate cyberstalking case, three people will go on trial in September next year over threats against French DJ Barbara Butch, one of the performers at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in July. Butch’s lawyer said she had received death threats after the performance. But the DJ vowed: “I won’t shut up. I’m not afraid of those who hide behind a screen, or a pseudonym, to spew their hatred and frustrations… I’m committed, and I’m proud.”

The accused in both cases face up to two years in prison if found guilty.