Four men are set to face trial in Paris next year for allegedly harassing French First Lady Brigitte Macron online.
The harassment includes malicious comments about her gender, sexuality, and age difference with President Emmanuel Macron, as well as likening her to a pedophile, prosecutors said.
The allegations come from a long history of online harassment and disinformation targeting Brigitte Macron.
For years, false claims about her gender have circulated on social media, and she has faced criticism over the 24-year age difference with her husband.
In August, Brigitte Macron filed a complaint, leading authorities to open an investigation into cyberharassment and incitement to commit an offense. A hearing is scheduled for July next year, with the trial set to take place at the end of October.
Among the accused is Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, a publicist known on social media as “Zoe Sagan,” who is often linked with conspiracy theory circles. Poirson-Atlan’s lawyer, Juan Branco, has denounced the charges, accusing the public prosecutor of taking an “obvious political direction.”
The online harassment has included false claims that Brigitte Macron never existed and that her brother, Jean-Michel, had changed gender and assumed her identity. In September, a French court ordered two women to pay 8,000 euros ($8,400) in damages to Macron after falsely claiming she was transgender, sparking online rumor-mongering by conspiracy theorists and the far right.
The relationship between President Macron, 46, and his wife, 71, has been a subject of media attention in France and abroad. The couple met while Brigitte was a teacher and Emmanuel was a teenager.
