French President's wife Brigitte Macron to sue over rumours she is a man

A disinformation campaign has in the last days targeted the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron falsely claiming she was a born a man, adding to fears over internet fake news less than four months ahead of presidential elections.

Brigitte Macron, 68, intends to file a legal complaint to sue over the disinformation. “She has decided to start procedures, it’s in process,” her lawyer Jean Ennochi told AFP, without giving further details.

The false claim had grown in momentum on social media over the last days, mixing strong opposition to the centrist Macron.

But the eruption of attacks against Brigitte Macron, come as her husband, who celebrated his 44th birthday on Tuesday, prepares to fight what is expected to be a tense battle to seek re-election in April.

Macron’s relationship with his wife 24 years his senior as always attracted fierce media interest in France and outside. They first met when she led a drama class while he was still a teenage schoolboy.

This is not the first time that the Macron couple have been targeted by rumours targeting gender.

For several months, messages have multiplied on social networks claiming that Brigitte Macron, born as Brigitte Trogneux, is a transgender woman whose first name at birth was Jean-Michel.

The problem is not only the liar about the sex re assignment but also the false official public scribing to cover the case. #BrigitteMacron would be born man as #JeanMichelTrogneux the missing brother… pic.twitter.com/CVDMkLVa31

— 🇫🇷 🐓Douze Bravo⚜️✝️ (@DouzeBravo) December 22, 2021

The false claims allege that a vast plot has been engineered to hide this change in civil status.

This fake news first circulated very in a very low-key way.

The first such claim appears to have been made on Facebook in March by a user calling themselves “Natacha Rey”. The page of this “journalist” is swarming with conspiratorial theories and diatribes against the so-called “health dictatorship”.

The user’s postings mix family photos and purported civil status documents.

“Natacha Rey” claims to be the origin of the so-called investigation.

Almost two weeks after its publication, the hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux appeared for the first time on Twitter on November 1 before being spread by a relatively little-followed account “Le Journal de la Macronie” which is staunchly opposed to the president, according to the InVid We Verify data analysis tool developed for AFP.

https://twitter.com/PatRIOT07136332/status/1471733001511915521?s=20

For nearly a month, the hashtag was not greatly visible, but experienced a spectacular rise in popularity from the beginning of December. On December 6, it generated only 35 tweets, but produced more than 13,000 three weeks later.

According to InVid’s latest count, the hashtag has so far generated 68,300 retweets and over 174,000 likes. The interpretation of these figures is not unambiguous as the count includes both those who use the hashtag to promote their cause but also those who highlight the trend to denounce it.