France’s presidential couple have filed court cases both in France and the United States to refute false claims that Brigitte Macron was born a man. One French misinformation specialist believes a lack of coverage of the story by traditional media may have only fanned the flames of one of the biggest fake news stories to date.
Claims that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman first emerged online in 2021 and have since gone viral. “Two billion people have been exposed to this story in French and 2.5 billion in English,” says investigative journalist Thomas Huchon.
"I've been working on conspiracy theories and fake news for more than 10 years, and I've never seen something like that," says Huchon, who specialises in misinformation.
"Whether that be on the topic, the magnitude of the reach of the audience, of the impact it has on French society and French politics, we've never seen such crazy fake news having such a wide and important impact."
Flora Bolter, an expert in LGBTQI+ issues at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès think tank, describes it as a "perfect storm" of trends, pointing to a rise in attacks on trans rights globally, a surge in conspiracy theories post-Covid, and a "very human desire to belittle people in power, particularly attacking powerful men through their wives".
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'So dirty, so personal'
The rumour first surfaced through videos by Natacha Rey, "a conspiracy believer with links to France's Yellow Vest movement", according to Huchon, and Delphine J, an internet fortune-teller known online as Amandine Roy.
While the story circulated widely in far-right and conspiracist media, the Macrons remained quiet – as did most mainstream French media.
"We didn't want to cover it because it was so lame, so dirty, so personal," Huchon, who was working for news channel LCI at the time, admits. "In France, we have a tradition of not talking too much about the private life of our leaders."
They feared the "Streisand effect" – when addressing a rumour merely amplifies it – but Huchon now believes their reasoning was flawed.
"The Streisand effect is so 20th century. It's not true in the 21st century, with social media," he says. "I was wrong not to cover it, and all the media outlets were wrong not to cover it.
"Today we realise that we were afraid to talk to hundreds, thousands of people on French TV about this story. And we have billions of people that have been exposed to this on the internet. I think we lost this game."
He cites the example of the 2020 “Hold Up” documentary which claimed to uncover a global conspiracy by world elites to control citizens through the Covid-19 pandemic.
French media actively fact-checked and then debunked this, and whilst it reached 3 million views, "from the moment it was debunked, nobody even talks about this movie anymore, only conspiracy believers".
Listen to a conversation with Thomas Huchon in the Spotlight on France podcast episode 134
Global escalation
The rumour that Brigitte Macron was born Jean-Michel Trogneux – in fact the name of her older brother – and that she has hidden the fact, began when Rey and Roy connected with Xavier Poussard, head of far-right publication Faits et Documents.
Following the publication of articles on the subject, a YouTube video featuring what Huchon describes as "a fake journalist talking with a medium" reached 1 million views within days in November 2021.
For two years, the story circulated online – "100 tweets a day, maybe 200 tweets a day, but no more than this," according to Huchon.
But the turning point came in February 2024, when Emmanuel Macron suggested that French soldiers could fight on Ukrainian soil.
"In the hour following this declaration, there were 17,000 tweets claiming that Brigitte Macron is in reality a man," Huchon says. "And those tweets were coming from two countries – Russia and the United States."
Around the same time, Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News commentator, returned from Moscow with what Huchon describes as "secret files the Russian president gave him" which he passed to Candace Owens, a far-right influencer close to the far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement QAnon.
Owens went on to create a television series called "Becoming Brigitte" and co-authored a best-selling book of the same name with Poussard.
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Destabilisation tactic
Thus, Brigitte Macron became the victim of a transphobic tactic, popular in some far-right circles, known as "transvestigation" whereby prominent women are “accused” of being trans and hiding their true identity.
Both former US first lady Michelle Obama and former New Zealand president Jacinda Ardern have been similarly targeted, as has singer Lady Gaga.
In the Brigitte Macron case, the conspiracists are using the first lady to target, and undermine, President Macron himself. By claiming the first lady was born a man it feeds the rumour, popular in Russia, that the president is homosexual, and therefore somehow "less manly" and a weaker leader.
QAnon believers also regularly push a theory the world is run by a largely Jewish paedophile ring. Peddlers of the Macron trans story have also zoned in on the fact that the Macrons met when Emmanuel was 14 and Brigitte Trogneux, aged 39, was his teacher. They claim he was therefore a victim of paedophilia.
These fake news stories seek to “destabilise” Macron and therefore France, which along with Europe is “one of the few remaining voices of opposition to the US and Russia”, Huchon argues.
“It’s not just an attack on the Macrons, but on democracy itself and the concept of truth."
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Fighting back
After remaining silent for years, Brigitte Macron and her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux filed a lawsuit in 2023 against Rey and Roy for defamation. They won in the first instance, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.
The judge ruled that claiming someone is transgender cannot be considered harmful to their reputation under French law since being transgender is not a slur.
Brigitte macron has appealed the verdict at France's highest court but Bolter says it shows the complexity of the web the Macrons are caught in.
"The accusations are transphobic, definitely, but Brigitte Macron is also showing she feels insulted by being called trans and that's a very bad position."
She highlights voices within the LGBTQI+ community, such as Louis-Georges Tin, who have criticised Brigitte Macron's stance as undermining already fragile trans rights.
In a separate lawsuit, 10 people, including Rey and Roy, recently appeared in court accused of sexist cyberbullying. Brigitte Macron's daughter Tiphaine Auzière testified to the "change and deterioration" in her mother's condition, underlining the trauma both she and her grandchildren have suffered.
Bolter believes the cyber-bullying charges are more promising than the defamation case, as "the effects on her health are demonstrable".
Rumour 'will never stop'
The Macrons are nonetheless determined to "establish the truth" in the US, where they have filed a lawsuit against Owens for defamation.
In March last year, Owens posted on social media that she would "stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man".
The trial will be held in the US state of Delaware in early 2026. The 250-page lawsuit says the Macrons will provide evidence to refute Owens' claim, according to Le Monde.
The newspaper also reported that President Macron had asked President Trump to "calm" Owens down, during a meeting between the two heads of state on Ukraine in February this year.
The US court case is a legal gamble and risks drawing further global media attention to the story. But if the Macrons’ legal team can show Owens knowingly “profited from claims she knew to be false, they might have a chance” of winning the case, Huchon says.
However, both he and Bolter believe the verdict won’t change much.
“The problem is not the conspiracists, it’s the platforms that allow them to have such a wide reach,” said Huchon. "The problem is social media. We have to regulate it, much more."
“The rumour will never stop, since conspiracists aren’t convinced by facts,” he added, insisting the main issue now is how to handle the next big fake news story.
