Brigitte Macron to launch legal action over transphobic rumour

Brigitte Macron is believed to be taking legal action over transphobic rumours spreading false information about her identity which were published on Twitter.

For several weeks, comments have been posted on the social media platform suggesting that President Emmanuel Macron’s wife is a trans woman whose birth name is Jean-Michel.

The hashtags #JeanMichelTrogneux – Trogneux being Mrs Macron’s maiden name – began trending on Twitter, with approximately 60,000 Tweets posted on this subject and some users suggesting that she is not the biological mother of her children.

Posts regarding ‘Jean-Michel Trogneux’ often belong to accounts which are “opposed to Emmanuel Macron, coming from the extreme right and from anti-vax, Covid-sceptic circles,” Libération reports.

Similar messages have been published on Facebook “by pages which support the gilet jaune movement or which are opposed to President Macron’s health policies,” the newspaper adds.

This Jean-Michel Trogneux theory was first published in September in the far-right journal Faits et documents, which claimed that it came as a result of a three-year-long investigation.

This is not the first time that Mrs Macron, 68, has been targetted on social media.

In 2019, President Macron called Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro “extraordinarily rude” after he appeared to laugh along with a Facebook post mocking Mrs Macron’s physique.

Read more: Why Brazilians are saying 'sorry' to Mrs Macron

During the presidential election campaign in 2017, the French First Lady was criticised for the 24-year age gap which exists between her and her husband.

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