On September 12, a Paris court ordered two women to pay €8,000 in compensation for damages caused to French first lady Brigitte Macron for spreading false rumors about her transgender status.
According to The Guardian, Amandine Roy and Natasha Ray posted a video on YouTube in December 2021 claiming that the French president’s wife was supposedly a man named Jean-Michel.
The video quickly spread online and went viral just weeks before the 2022 presidential election. As a result, Brigitte Macron filed a defamation suit.
False rumours that Brigitte Macron does not actually exist and that her brother Jean-Michel supposedly changed gender and adopted the name Brigitte spread widely on social media, not only in France but also abroad. In the United States, these rumours also reached the news space, provoking mockery and additional videos on YouTube, which, however, were soon deleted.
As a result of the trial, the court ordered Roy and Ray to pay 8,000 euros to the first lady and 5,000 euros to her brother Jean-Michel Trogno. In addition, both women were sentenced to a suspended fine of 500 euros.
Brigitte Macron, 71, did not attend the June court hearing or the announcement of the court’s decision.
Earlier, Cursor reported that Macron’s wife felt embarrassed during a meeting with Britain’s Queen.
